Film: Open City

Friday, June 20, 2008


Kim Myung-Min as Jo Dae Young

I caught Open City last night, a SK film that came out earlier this year, and it's worth checking out especially if you're a fan of crime dramas, or you're a fan of Kim Myung-Min (Return, Fake Family, The Great White Tower) or Son Ye-Jin (who makes a big leap forward in breaking out of the romantic dramas/comedies that she's usually associated with).


Son Ye-Jin as Baek Jang Mi

The movie centers around the world of international pickpocketing organizations where Son Ye-Jin plays one of the ringleaders (Baek Jang-Mi) who runs a tattoo parlor by day as a cover-up, and Kim Myun-Min who plays a criminal investigator (Jo Dae-Young) trying to bring the gangs down - each with their own secrets about their past and their family which are revealed throughout the film, and each playing their own cat and mouse game with each other after they meet (Dae-Young learns later that Jang-Mi is a prime target in the investigations).

The organized crime might not be as harrowing as something like Johnnie To's Election - and at first I still couldn't shake the good girl image of Ye-Jin from her previous roles (which left after I saw her getting beat down in an alley by a rival gang) - but it ended up being grittier than I thought - and with some added twists and subplots, it definitely kept me watching (although I think I liked it more than other people did).

Here's the trailer: