Public Enemy

At first I wasn't sure what kind of film this was: cop film, murder mystery, comedy? The black humour throughout is peppered with lots of swearing and some gruesome killing scenes.

What's different about this film is the cast - the main cop Kang Cheol-Jung, his boss, and others are all eccentrics in their own right. There aren't many jokes or slapstick, but the characters themselves make you laugh.

Unlike other murder mysteries where the investigator solves the case with clues and evidence, Kang Cheol-Jung (the main cop) pursues this case because of his instinct. He has no doubt the suspect is guilty (somehow), despite the lack of evidence.

As for being quirky - there are a few scenes in this film which make you wonder "why did they include this"? One such scene involves the main villain/suspect in the movie. His character is played so well you actually start to hate the guy as the film progresses. "What a jerk!" you think. At that point you understand (perhaps) why the first scene portrays him as it does. ;-) You'll understand once you've seen the film.

This film is quite unique, unlike any others I've seen. Highly recommended.

During a stakeout a corrupt cop, under investigation by Internal Affairs, has his face slashed by a mysterious character wearing a raincoat. A connection is made between a brutally murdered elderly couple not far away from the previous incident and this rain coated man. The cop believes the couple's son might have involved in the murder and decides to investigate him.

So you have here two characters in supposedly respectable occupations (one a cop, the other a fund manager) who ain't angels. This is more obvious in the cop's physical appearance, his drug dealing and his sharing a hot bath with Korean sort of yakuza, even though the introduction of the manager character played by Lee Sung-jae (a familiar face now in the West starring in films such as Attack the Gas Station, Barking Dogs Never Bite & Art Museum by the Zoo) is quite revealing too. Masturbating and swearing in the shower in an interesting shot that completely isolates him, then we see him sharing a breakfast and playing with his wife and son in the warmth of a comfortable house. I have to say that the first 20 minutes of the film are rather interesting because the character's ambiguity still play an important role. Then all falls apart simply because of the cop's sort of rediscovery of his duty after seeing the dead bodies of the elderly couple (or is it he is only jealous at the manager's lifestyle). It all becomes a bit of a farce that w e're supposed to take seriously as the film has to make serious compromises after such a bleak beginning. "Nobody does something like that to somebody's parent without any motive" he says "for me they are public enemies". I hate to judge films by comparing them to others but Public Enemy has a too much of a Dirty Harry influence (this really put me off), a too cliché supportive boss, who is got to deal with the more bureacratic and politically correct higher hierarchies of the police department, and a array of weird characters, all criminals, that helps the cop to catch his so-called Public Enemy. The cop's trademark speech when confronting criminals really got on my nerves and not many in the audience found it funny anyway.

The good thing is about the bad guy in the movie... the text on the DVD box told about a corrupt cop vs. a psychopath... Well, I feared the psychopath was a serial killer with all the nauseating, fetishist rituals stuff "a la" Seven or other movies alike. But the killer is almost a normal guy (as much as a killer can be a "normal guy"!), killing with a purpose... Well, the guy is seriously crazy anyway, killing for very trivial motives, such as a man spilling his drink on him.

The bad thing in the movie is a kind of a scatological scene. It may seem trivial for some people, but for me, it wasted my enjoyment. Apart from that and 2 or 3 bloody sequences this is a very good movies.

OK for a starters my girlfriend hates subtitled films. One week i spent my paycheck buying all the tartan extreme collection. The best decision i have ever made. talk about value for money. From versus, to the bride with white hair, to the ramones and public enemy. The film has everything black hunour, comic scenes, a psycho killer, and one of the most unusual cops since briggs in lethal weapon, a pure loner who develops a conscience while the movie progresses. The movie trailer really made me want to watch this. As i said my girlfriend hates subtitles film but she loved this a must for all thriller and black humour fans. A little long at two hours but highly enjoyable.

The movie is a cross between "American Psycho" and "Infernal Affairs". It just doesn't do it in terms of quality of the scenario, or probably the way some actors play. Only the psycho was halfway decent. It could have been better if some of the actors just avoided to show they were acting by overdoing it, like the comical moments or some dramatic ones. The story would be good, but there were little things that prevented me to appreciate it. The ending should have stopped when the villain is done and dealt with, but there was an addition, which annoyed me. I saw similarities with the other Korean movie ("The Host"), in that I can't decide whether I should be happy or sad about the character, if not the movie.