Private Eye/ Geu-rim-ja Sal-in (Park Dae-min, 2009); South Korea

Reviewed by Danae Thomas. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Metro 4 Theater.

If you enjoy mystery, suspenseful films with highly amusing characters then you will appreciate Private Eye (Park DaeMin, 2009). The actors Jeong-min Hwang, and Deok-Hwan Ryu work magnificently together as a team with their comical facial expressions and their quirky jokes that kept myself and the audience laughing out loud during the whole film. Even though these actors make the film entertaining with their humorous jokes, there are intense, powerful scenes that hold the audience’s attention to keep watching the film.

A young med student stumbles across a dead body in the middle of the woods and decides to bring it back home with him so he can use it for study. Once he realizes that the minister’s son is missing then he begins to worry and wonder if the body he found the other night is the one they’re looking for. He panics and decides to hire detective Hong Jin-Ho who normally catches women cheating on their husbands and refuses to do dangerous cases. However since the med student is offering him the amount of cash he’ll win if he finds out who killed the ministers son Hong agrees to help him on his case. The med student knows he will be murdered if they catch him with the dead body so he has to find the executer in order to save his own life. During the film Hong Jin- Ho and the med student have many thrilling adventures that keep the audience engrossed in this film while they try to find the murderer.

Many themes in this film involve: proving who is innocent, women who are treated as sex objects, and wanting to be successful. The minister goes insane when he finds out his son is missing and starts accusing all the wrong people he even starts killing people whom he suspects. Sadly women in this film are sold for sex even as young little girls. Being successful is a crucial theme as the detective Hong Jin-Ho longs to be rich and is considering moving to the states so he can make more money there. The med student desires to be profitable as he continues to be advancing along in his medical schooling.

The camerawork and music is very well done in this film as it helps intensify certain scenes for example, when Hong Jin-Ho and the med student find someone they suspect they chase after him for quite awhile in the city of Korea and while they’re chasing him the camera does quick fast paced crosscutting shots and the music keeps building up which keeps the audience anxious because we’ve gotten to a point where we’re rooting for these good guys to catch the criminal. The acting is also extraordinary; Jeong-min Hwang plays a rather convincing detective and we can notice this by how he’s always with his med student and is always coming up with creative ideas for how they can capture their killer on the loose.

This film is worth your time because the characters and scenes will keep you captivated wanting to know what happens next instead of looking at your watch and wondering when it’ll be over.