Chose this to watch last night because of it's overwhelmingly positive reviews and the fact that it was directed by Park Chan-wook (who also directed produced Snowpiercer), and who doesn't like a good South Korean crime mystery?
How could this possibly be a bad film?
I would seriously pay $100 to never have to sit through 2 hours and 18 minutes of that absolute rubbish ever again in my life. This was absolute bollocks, complete horse shit.
spoiler
By 55 minutes in I'm so fucking bored and confused and seriously considering just turning it off and not even finishing it, but they haven't even started unravelling the mystery yet or who actually killed the husband. They're seriously spending like a third of the film with the detective and the wife/murder suspect just flirting with each other and going on stupid dates even though they clearly have no chemistry whatsoever and EVEN IF THEY DID this would still be so fucking boring what the fuck was the director thinking they could have established that in one or MAYBE two scenes.
Oh ok, so we've finally determined that the wife did the murder and we're a little over halfway through the film (NO FUCKING SHIT, of COURSE she was, we could establish this just from watching the trailer you numbskulls), and then they decide to just up and move to another city in South Korea without actually indicating this and we have to guess it based on the dialogue. And then they just repeat the plot of the first half of the movie OVER AGAIN; wow do you think the wife was the murderer AGAIN gee I don't know guess I'll just wait here on the edge of my seat for another fucking HOUR!.
There are so many things in this film that just happen out of nowhere, scene cuts that make no sense, plot points that come out of nowhere, long ass scenes that serve no purpose other than to establish points that had already been established like 35 fucking minutes ago.
In over two hours they accomplished no character development whatsoever, and the "dRaMaTiC eNdInG" of the film MADE NO FUCKING SENSE WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT WHAT THE FUCK, SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK, AND IT WASN'T POETIC OR ANYTHING IT WAS JUST A SENSELESS DEATH AND WHAT WAS THE MOTIVATION FOR HER JUST OFFING HERSELF? WHY? FUCKING WHY????
:agony-consuming:
This film was dog shit wrapped in cat shit. I would recommend it to nobody. This was two hours and eighteen minutes of my life that I will never get back. I would say that I have nothing but utter contempt for this film, but it was so devoid of any meaningful content that I cannot even say that.
As a dissenting opinion, I loved the film. I thought it was oozing with style and a great tribute to Vertigo and other films of that nature. The action sequences really worked and the cinematography was beautiful. The point wasn't the mystery, really, it's the tension and the style.
spoiler
From what I can tell the point is that both of these people are sick fucks that live off of catastrophe, they crave it and they're perfect for each other. Remember, the detective completely ruins his marriage because by leaving Busan and murder investigations he feels emasculated and unfocused, he needs tragedy in his life. The murderer/Chinese lady feels bad for ruining his life and in her sick way she gives him a never ending tragedy, the ultimate gift. Park loves endings like this, where the "villain" has a slightly bizarre motivation that's not super fun explained.
You know, I actually thought the premise of the film was really solid, I just felt that it was really drawn out.
Some of the editing was creative, I'll give it that, but I found that when it introduced new characters out of nowhere it was very jarring and I had no idea what was going on (ie: the two chase scenes where I had no idea what they were doing, who they were, or what was going on).
If the film had been like an hour shorter it would have been a lot more palatable, I felt like most of it was just filler scenes with no discernible purpose.