A Hard Day, (Seong-hoon Kim, 2014): South Korea

Reviewed by Thiago Coelho. Viewed at the Metro 4 Theatre, Santa Barbara

Director of the comedy “How the Lack of Love Affects Two Men” (2006), Seong-hoon Kim offers to the audience scenes of action with adrenaline, suspense and many plot twists. Fast, fun and interesting, a movie from South Korea to have fun with many twists and turns.

A detective is going through the worst day of his life: his wife wants a divorce, he has to attend the funeral of his mother and, moreover, he runs over and kills a guy in the street. With the dead body in the trunk and not knowing what to do, he begins a journey for anyone who knows what happened, but of course everything does not go as expected.

The film wastes no time in introductions. In the first five minutes we know that the protagonist is stressed about everything that happens and also death occurs. From that moment, the film is a journey without too many pauses filled with chases, explosions, humor, melee fighting, especially twists renewing interest in knowing what will happen next.

One of the most interesting points of the script is the way that it is shaping up to South Korean police. Far from being a battle between good and bad cop, the movie is immersed in corruption to develop a story in which all possess despicable attitudes. Humor works perfectly as an intensifier of those serious moments when what happens is too strong or unlikely, while the final is extensive, but that last scene is very well made.

Lee Sun Gyun creates a protagonist who is easy for the audience to feel sympathy, even though the decisions are disastrous. Very good performance. The rest of the cast is also correct and manages to stand Cho Jin-Woong, as the villain of the moment.

“A Hard Day” has a clean, dark and very stunning photography. It is a very entertaining, well written proposal and, above all things, surprising as the minutes go by. A roller coaster to ride worthwhile. Impossible to not remind the movie Falling Down, since the name of the movie until the way that the movie develop.