Having not seen this movie since MIFF in 2003 I jumped at the chance to grab a rare 35mm screening as it is one movie that seems to have missed a Blu-ray release and the DVD is now long out of print. I am mindful after finally watching SHIRI (1998) that it may not hold up great after all this time as it came in the time of the wave of South Korean movies debuting at film festivals and being very popular.

Park Chan-Wook actually said in the Q&A for Oldboy at MIFF in 2004 that the director was a “genius” and rated him very highly. He has not really made a lot of stuff since then but has worked on a few more films since then. This movie is almost an early-career role for a lot of the actors involved being it is so long ago now too.

The story such as it is involves young autistic/ADHD presenting man Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun) kidnapping the CEO of a pharmaceutical corporation Baek Yoon-sik (Kang Man-shik) who he believes to be an alien from Andromeda with the help his girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jeong-min). Baek Yoon-sik denies it of course but Lee Byeong-gu does not care as he plans to torture the information out of him as he has done it before it seems.

There is an investigation, but due to the kidnapped CEO being the son of the police commissioner it is put as high priority. There is a former detective who has his own theories but retired from the force in scandal and a young greenhorn who is on his side.

It is a bit difficult to explain the genre of this movie effectively as it seems to switch from crime to drama, back to torture porn (a full 2 years before Hostel), science-fiction and also comedy. The closest I could say it was in script writing would be the schizophrenic “clangs” of that particular speech pattern but in screenplay form. It does all seem to work together.

Given that the script would have been written in the 1990s, having two main characters that are autistic/ADHD and one takes the exact treatment prescribed for people with ADHD is quite something. I also liked that the “crazy theories” of the main character turn out 100% correct which kind of hits different post-COVID cooker conspiracy theory and the whole “stop the steal” thing.

Supposedly there is a remake slated by the director of Poor Things but I will believe that when I actually see it. If you can see this one I would still recommend it but not sure where it is available these days. Hopefully there is a Blu-ray release on the horizon given they have gone pretty far back into the archives to release special editions of some movies these days.

Rating: 4/5

Film details:

Director: Jang Joon-hwan

Writer: Jang Joon-hwan

Starring: Shin Ha-kyun, Baek Yoon-sik, Hwang Jeong-min, Lee Jae-yong, Lee Ju-hyeon, Gi Ju-bong

Country: South Korea

Language: Korean with English Subtitles

Length: 118 minutes

Genre: Crime, Thriller, Comedy, Science-fiction, horror

Trailer: