Public Enemy

Scowling Kang (Sul Kyung-Gu) is a broke, bedraggled detective, one cock-up removed from a demotion to traffic cop duty and prone to insane rages. Baby-faced Cho (Lee Sung-Jae) is a wealthy, white collar tyro, impeccably smooth surfaced and, as it happens, also prone to insane rages. The guy's clearly got family issues, as his mum and dad discover at the wrong end of a knife. The cop's hunch, but little else, pegs the good son as the killer. Keeping few secrets from the audience, this Korean domestic blockbuster depends not on investigative tension, but on the psychological inspections of the classical policier, focusing on polar contrasts, unexpected symmetries and the blurring of roles between hunter and prey. The director evinces an unflinching fascination for the visceral, viscous and vicious. The blood puddles and other dark stains that mark out the forensics trail commingle with streams of black comedy, and unlike so many cop dramas inevitably described as 'gritty', this emanates its own convincingly fetid aroma, owing greatly to Sul's vibrantly unwashed performance as one lone wolf stalking another. JWin.