http://www.beyondhollywood.com/running-wild-2006-movie-review/ Hollywood, Indie, Asian, Foreign, Horror, and Genre Movie Reviews and News Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:31:04 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 http://www.beyondhollywood.com/running-wild-2006-movie-review/comment-page-1/#comment-85038 Bri Sun, 19 Apr 2009 06:38:01 +0000 http://www.beyondhollywood.com/?p=88#comment-85038 Just watched this and found it to be one of the better crime thrillers to come out of Korea -- and I've seen damn near most of them (this one sat in the pile a little longer than I care to admit). This is also one of the few Korean films of any stripe where a 2+ hour run time was actually made proper use of, and thus I don't agree with your assessment that it's too long. In fact, though you say this, you immediately follow with TWO perfectly reasons why it's length is perfectly acceptable in this case: the development of character, stronger here than in many a Korean crime thriller (where regionally modified variants of Hollywood cliches abounf), and the fact that no aspect of the story, absolutely none, could be deemed as unnecessary to the finished package. This is epic storytelling the way so many Korean filmmakers have tried and just missed achieving it. This is Grade A meat. It actually reminds me so much of another muscular political crime thriller from Taiwan called Island Of Greed (1997). Just watched this and found it to be one of the better crime thrillers to come out of Korea — and I’ve seen damn near most of them (this one sat in the pile a little longer than I care to admit). This is also one of the few Korean films of any stripe where a 2+ hour run time was actually made proper use of, and thus I don’t agree with your assessment that it’s too long. In fact, though you say this, you immediately follow with TWO perfectly reasons why it’s length is perfectly acceptable in this case: the development of character, stronger here than in many a Korean crime thriller (where regionally modified variants of Hollywood cliches abounf), and the fact that no aspect of the story, absolutely none, could be deemed as unnecessary to the finished package. This is epic storytelling the way so many Korean filmmakers have tried and just missed achieving it. This is Grade A meat. It actually reminds me so much of another muscular political crime thriller from Taiwan called Island Of Greed (1997).

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