Bilgi :"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster."
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
That desire, the greed to finally get what you want. To defeat your inner monsters, which create a monster out there to defeat, which drive you to become one yourself. For Jang Do-Young (Kwon Sang-Woo), that monster is happiness, which never seems to come, the search for some sort of answer driving his violent life as a detective. For prosecutor Oh Jin-Woo, it's ultimate justice for those who deserve to be punished, those who always seem to find a way out through less than lawful means. For Yoo Gang-Jin (Son Byung-Ho), that ruthless monster is his own way of life, jumping from family to 'family', trusting nobody and not being able to trust anyone. But behind all those monsters is a common problem, that desire driving our instincts to the limit, even if we lose everything in the process. First time director Kim Sung-Soo -- not to be confused with the director of (Musa: The Warrior), for the last time knows that desire all too well, as it engulfed him for years, without realizing the many things he was leaving behind.
Kim was, like many of today's directors in Chungmuro, one of those 'Hollywood Kids', drunk and obsessed with Cinema in ways only those facing the same problem (ahem...) can understand. He wanted to become a director so much, he kept the fact he enrolled into Film & Theater at the Seoul University of Arts secret for months. His short films in the mid 90s, (Hotel California) first and especially (Violent Film) and (Wounded Birds) won him acclaim and several awards, which jumpstarted his career in Chungmuro. His work as assistant director, lasting nearly a decade, saw him work in the commercial field, with the horrible 1995 Park Joong-Hoon vehicle (A Man Wagging His Tail), Song Hae-Sung's 1999 melodrama (Calla) and even the embarrassing film remake of the mid 90s TV classic (General Hospital), but also with Park Chan-Wook 3 (Trio). The motto back then for young Kim was success at all costs, your average workaholic. His obsession with films led him to pay very little attention at home, where his mother's health was getting worse, to the point he lost her shocked by this unexpected turn of events. Angry with himself and the world, it was there that characters like Oh Jin-Woo and Jang Do-Young were born, years before (Running Wild) even became reality.
|
