"Deranged" is an ecological thriller from South Korea with a fair amount of action and a few drama elements as well. Fans of movies such as "The Host" or "Tidal Wave" will also enjoy this one.
The movie tells us the story of two brothers who don't talk to each other anymore since a tragic incident in the past. The intelligent Jae- Hyeok is a disgruntled sales executioner in a pharmaceutical company and has to do a few very degrading jobs to make his wife and two children live a modest live. His brother Jae-Pil is a cop with a bad reputation but a few good connections who is in a relationship with a doctor. When a mysterious disease breaks out in the country, the wife and children of Jae-Hyeok are among the one million infected people. The two brothers need to work together and reconcile and soon realize that the catastrophe has something to do with parasites living in water who nest in human bodies and end up killing them by drowning them or breaking out of their stomaches. As investigations progress, they realize that the infections didn't break out by pure coincidence and are about to discover a conspiracy. Meanwhile, the health of Jae-Hyeok's wife and children decreases and the two brothers desperately need to get their hands on an obscure and rare medicament that could save them.
This pandemic movie convinces with a very solid acting, a well done cinematography with a few well done but not overwhelming special effects and an entertaining pace. There really isn't much wrong with the movie but I thought that the little twist in this movie was too generic and predictable as one feels that one has seen this kind of story line a couple of times before in Hollywood. Towards the end, the two brothers run a little bit too much around to find the medicament and the concept gets just a little bit repetitive. Apart of that, a few more scenes could have been spend on the relationship between the two brother but the movie rather turns out to focus on the sometimes difficult relationship between the father and his wife and children that is very well done and touching.
Those who like pandemic thrillers and modern South Korean cinema should purchase this film and will be well entertained. It's nothing groundbreaking or new but the film is on the same high level as the Hollywood movies of the same kind inspired by the novels of Robin Cook, Michael Crichton or Stephen King for example.
