CinemaSerf
7.0/10May 18, 2025
I must admit I didn’t quite understand just what was going on at the start of this. “Lee Kang-su” (Kang Ha-neul) is a brash and confident young man who manages to get information on drug dealers which he then passes on to the police and/or the public prosecutors in return for a cut and them getting a reduced sentence if they turn state’s evidence. Thing is, the further up the food chain they get the more political “interference” the investigators encounter and pretty swiftly that causes problems for this young “Yadang” as he ends up a victim of his erstwhile protector, ambitious prosecutor “Ku Gwen-hee” (Yoo Hae-jin) and pumped full of blue methadone to the point where he doesn’t know day from night. Once released, though, he unites with similarly manipulated former police captain “Oh Sang-jae” (Park Hae-joon) and an young actor (Chae Won-bin) whose career was wrecked after she, too, was exposed to this highly addictive substance and ultimately used as a glorified hooker by someone extremely close to the presidency - and the election is looming. Once the story gets up and running, this proves to be quite an entertaining, if not always entirely plausible, analysis of lucrative drug running and politicking in a South Korea that seems determined to stamp out criminality however perilous that path might be. It’s a gritty, sometimes seedy film that sees both men and Chae Win-bin deliver strongly and in the case of Kang Hae-neul enthusiastically too. There is plenty of action across the two hours and the denouement has something of “The Sting” (1973) to it as vengeance knows few bounds. Worth a watch.
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