Geu-rim-ja sal-in (2009) Reviews

• Terrific Blend of Fun, Drama, Action; Loved It!

  film_ophile2012-06-19

  If this really is the first film of this director, he should be in the running for a First Film prize. The other reviews give you a good grounding of the plot and main characters. I loved so many things about the film-the general fun and tone of the film, the Mifune-like detective with great instincts, his somewhat goofy assistant/doctor who was none-the-less effective in many ways,the brilliant woman's help in solving the case,and the highlighting of women's issues and good morals. The pace,action, costumes and settings were all well done and i was engaged from beginning to end. I WANT sequels! * One caveat- they kept changing the look of the detective such that i was rather confused about whether new characters were being introduced in a number of early scenes.But no, it was the same guy.

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• Not Holmes at all

  dannyv-12012-07-04

  It starts out more of a Raymond Chandler sort of story but grows more grave and deadly toward the end with more of a Dashiell Hammett feel. The private eye is smart but very proletarian much more a Philip Marlowe than anything else. The medical student is nothing like any Watson ever seen and while very enjoyable is wholly original. The scientific brains are provided by a mysterious woman, and I will let the film reveal who she may be. I found the whole of the film to be much more enjoyable than any of the new crop of Holmes movies and TV shows. The detective dose wear a straw fedora but if you want to see a real fedora you should watch 'The Thin Man', Nick Charles wears two fedoras, the grey is quite upper scale and black while showing a classic c crown appears older and beaten.

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• A solid period mystery

  d_art2010-05-03

  Also called Shadow Murder in Korean, Private Eye takes place in South Korea, 1910. A young medical student discovers a dead body, which he decides to use for his research. When he finds out it is the body of the son of a government official, fearing he may be accused of murder, he hires Hong Jin-ho, a detective who only specializes in snooping on unfaithful spouses, to find the real killer. The two main characters, Hong Jin-ho and Kwang-su, could be considered somewhat like Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Only real similarities are that Hong Jin-ho is the detective, and Kwang-su plays a sidekick role as a doctor, who happens to be into forensics. Personality-wise, Hong Jin-ho is quite unusual for a detective. Often driven by money, he is kind of a hustler, not particularly sharp nor heroic, yet clever than he appears. He is often seen wearing a white fedora and smoking a cigarette. Kwang-su, on the other hand, appears to be in his early 20's, somewhat childlike, and despite his medical knowledge, tend to be rather skittish. The third main character is a sophisticated upper-class inventor-lady Park Soon-deok (Eom Ji-won), who seem to share a certain kinship with the detective. The style of the film is a mix of broad humor, action, and a bit of drama. The film sets reflect the times of that period, when Japan-Korean tensions were quite high, as Korea was forcefully annexed under Japanese rule at the time. There are mixes of Western, Japanese, and Korean influences in the clothes, as well as language and sets. As expected, undertones of political tensions can be felt in the story. Overall, I enjoyed the film, despite some nitpicks. According to IMDb, the film appears to be Park Dae-Min's directorial debut (I could be wrong). Admittedly, the film seems to be missing a bit of the subtleties I tend to expect from Korean films, and some of the acting feels a bit hammy. Some of the side characters feel two-dimensional, especially the government officials. Pacing sometimes felt uneven and some of the editing was confusing, particularly certain close-quartered action scenes involving shaky camera. With that said, the story kept the film in place and I was surprised at occasional clever turns. Hong Jin-ho is a very likable detective, helped much by Jeong-Min Hwang's swaggering performance. While not groundbreaking, the story is solid enough. Although mostly straightforward, the plot does get a bit tangled up in places, especially near the end, and I had to think a bit afterwards. Ultimately, though, it is the main characters that made this film work. When the detective makes headway into the investigation, it's hard not to cheer him on. You want him to win--you want him to get the bad guy. It's not all fun and games, however, as the story does have an unsettling side. Near the end, one can see an opening for a sequel (which, surprisingly, I would LOVE to see). I liked this film, even if I thought it could've been better--I liked the characters enough that I would love to see them come back. It's a great start and I wouldn't be surprised if the sequel turns out to be spectacular. Overall, despite pacing issues, I give this film *** out of **** stars. For my movie reviews, you can also follow me on http://twitter.com/d_art

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• Solid mystery

  dbborroughs2009-12-30

  During the Japanese occupation of Korea a young med student desperate to work on a real human body stumbles upon a corpse and the woods and takes it home. Complications arise when he discovers whose body it is, namely the son of the Interior Minister. Unable to get rid of the body without drawing attention to himself he hires a private eye specializing in errant wives to solve the murder before he finds himself arrested. From there the story spins out as the private eye, his client (and stand in Doctor Watson), and a lady who is a scientific genius begin an investigation that grows more and more complicated as more bodies begin to turn up, the wrong people are arrested and the implications of events take a darker turn. Its a story very much mired in class with all of the main characters are outsiders of a sort; The client not quite a doctor, the detective was once a guard in the Royal Court, who left for some reason; and the lady is upper class and chaffing at the limits of her station-she shouldn't be studying science and making the things she makes. None subscribe to the conventions of class and seem to act only with an innate sense of justice and fairness (things get tenser when the wrong people get arrested for the crimes). Operating on the outside of society they are free to walk among all of the classes, something that is required to solve the crime. The story at its core is very much the sort of thing that Sherlock Holmes might have handled had Arthur Conan Doyle allowed his stories to becomes several shades darker than they are.(the story starts off as a simple murder mystery but things get very dark as the story progresses) The film is for much of its running time an excellent drama with a fine trio of detectives at its core. One watches the film because it's hard not to like the heroes trying to get to the bottom of the foul deeds. This is a good thing because the films plot begins to become unwieldy as events go on with a few side characters not as well drawn as the central trio and a couple of story complications (opium war?) that come across as not particularly well integrated. This last bit could have been straightened out by extending the running time by a few minutes. In the end the film and especially the characters stay with you. I find that some 24 hours after seeing the film I like it better than when it just ended. To a large degree it's because of the characters. I want to see what happens next, something one can hope will happen since the film ends with the possibility of more adventures for out heroes. A solid film. Recommended

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• MIND-BLOWN , Rating of 7 is injustice. deserves 9+

  ravi-or-raj2013-12-06

  I've been on a Korean movie spree recently , first The Memories of a Murder , then Mother, Old boy and Now This(which to me is the best) . The Plot is solid and éven with its 2+ hour length the Movie's pace doesn't drop for a minute. The characters and their actions/motives are Pretty well sketched out. The only thing I didn't really get completely was the equation between the detective and the scientist woman ,exactly what kind of historythey shared. This is the director's first Movie, and looking at IMDb profile, I cant see any other movies credit to him in the near future.This kind of a movie deserves a Sequel , specially since the ending pointed towards one.

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