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recent years, the amoral policeman has become
almost as common a motif in Korean cinema as the
long haired female ghost. Despite this, many film
makers seem to be harbouring the illusion that
there is something original in satirising the
establishment through depicting corrupt officials
and drawing an explicit link between the behaviour
of law makers and law breakers. Fortunately,
"Bloody Tie" manages to transcend this
over familiarity, more than anything due to its
gritty, cynical approach and a nihilistic sense of
believability, eschewing the usual clichéd genre
figures in favour of a genuinely engaging set of
characters.
The film follows Sang Do
(Ryoo Seung Bum, also in "Crying
Fist" and "Arahan"),
a small time crystal meth dealer who is trying to
carve out a living in the drugs trade. He also
acts as an informant for corrupt policeman Ho
(played by Hwang Jung Min, "You Are My
Sunshine") who is trying to bring down the
local drug kingpin, and is quite clearly happy to
use whatever methods are necessary. Although the
two are forced into a kind of alliance, Sang Do
finds his life growing increasingly complex as he
tries to keep his retired dealer uncle out of
trouble, as well as attempting to assuage some of
the guilt he feels at his immoral life by helping
a tragic young woman (Choo Ja Hyun, who received
the Best New Actress Award at the 43rd Daejong
Awards for her excellent performance) get her life
back on track.
Although "Bloody
Tie" may sound like a run of the mill
mismatched buddy comedy, it is anything but, with
Sang Do not so much teaming up with Ho as being
blackmailed into helping him. The character
development in the film never follows the expected
conventions, and the two never come close to
forming any real kind of bond or friendship,
instead exploiting each other for often ruthless
reasons. This kind of nihilistic cynicism pervades
almost every aspect of the film, with police and
criminals being equally without any of the kind of
loyalty or brotherhood with which they are so
often portrayed.
The world which director Choi
Ho creates is one of dog eat dog in its simplest
form, with lies and betrayals being necessary for
survival. Impressively, Choi sticks to his guns,
and refuses to offer the viewer any kind of hero,
or even antihero figure, and the characters never
undergo much in the way of moral growth or set out
on the usual journey of redemption. Pleasingly,
Choi also avoids glamorising the drugs trade in
any way, with its effects on users being shown in
unpleasant detail, including one startling scene
where an addict imagines herself covered with
insects.
The film as a whole is
fittingly violent, with some vicious beatings and
bloody shootings adding to the air of brutality.
What is perhaps more surprising is the film's
sexual content, which is unusually graphic for a
Korean film, and which is used not for titillation
but to further the sleazy squalor of the
characters' lives. All of this adds another layer
of believability to "Bloody Tie", as it
acknowledges a darker side of
Korea
rarely seen in mainstream productions.
All this having been said,
"Bloody Tie" is actually quite a funny
film, with a bleak sense of humour apparent
throughout. This manifests itself in a number of
ways, for example during scenes with Ho swearing
vengeance for his dead partner whilst making
incompetent love to his wife. The laughs are
decidedly low key, and the director never lets
them do anything more than bubble under the
surface or detract from the film's more serious
aspects. This is in fact one of the film's
greatest strengths, as it shows a kind of
restraint and focus which has often been lacking
in similar efforts.
The film has a sort of
neo-noir look, with most of the action taking
place at night and lit predominantly by
streetlight. Choi seems to be aiming for an ironic
take on the kind of hard boiled police thrillers
so popular in the
U.S.
in the 1970s and in
Hong Kong
during the 1980s, with shaky handheld camera work
mixed in with well judged split screen action to
give the proceedings a real sense of urgency. As
such, the film feels like an updated version of
Friedkin's classic "The French
Connection", not only visually, but perhaps
more importantly, spiritually as well.
It is a shame that
"Bloody Tie" probably won't be widely
seen in the West, as it is certainly one of the
best Korean films of the last few years. Although
some may be put off by the fact that it belongs to
an undeniably overcrowded genre, it is very much
the definitive film of its type, and is one of the
very few to offer such a believably harsh
portrayal of the drugs trade in Korea.
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