Sasaeng gyeoldan

Bloody Tie was my last movie for this year's Singapore International Film Festival, and although it's an action movie, I thought it ended my festival this year with a whimper rather than with a bang.

Set in the time of the IMF (not the Mission Impossible one) making loans to a South Korean economic collapse, the populace begins to turn to drugs for their bit of escapism. The worst hit city with plenty of drug addicts happen to be Busan, and for drug dealer Sangdo, this presents opportunity to make it to the big league. On the other side of the law, narcotics police detective Lieutenant Do, known for his unorthodox and violent prone techniques, takes Sangdo under his wing as his informal snitch.

But as all things go, it's a black eat black world, with cop and drug dealer striking up an uneasy partnership, each with their own agenda to leach on the other for their own selfish reasons, in their common quest to take down the new and current drug lord. Sounds like good stuff? That's what I thought too, until the pacing switched me off for the most parts. It's full of verbal bravado, and plenty of supporting characters adding absolutely nothing to further the story. Its runtime of almost 2 hours was not justified, and some sections could have been cut short to quicken things up. One of the few saving graces is its black humour, but other than that, it's pretty serious and sombre.

If you're interested, stay tuned until the end of the credits. But given the late night, the projectionist was too trigger happy to shut the projector off halfway through the scene. Pity.