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The Package
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The StorySun-Hwa,
a pretty young woman, is spotted by Han-Ki, a hulking near-mute pimp, who takes
an immediate shine to her. Han
walks up to her and smooches her in the middle of a crowded sidewalk, and is
promptly spit on and beaten up by some uniformed military men who happen to be
passing by. He gets his revenge by leaving a wallet of money strategically
placed in a bookstore for Sun (who despite her good looks is far from angelic)
to snatch. She’s promptly
caught, and in order to repay her debt is forced into prostitution. Sun
doesn’t adapt particularly well to her new profession, much to the
consternation of her captor, who intently watches her through a one way mirror.
Things are complicated by one of Han’s fellow pimp buddies, who
becomes infatuated with Sun; despite his occupation, the guy tries to free Sun
from her new-found life as a whore, but Han manages to recapture her and force
her back into it. However,
a change is coming over Sun: she finds she’s beginning to take to being a
prostitute, as well as the guy who’s forced her into it.
Matter of fact, she actually starts to enjoy the fact that he’s
watching her work on her “johns” through the one-way mirror. But
there’s trouble on the horizon: Han has gotten involved with some street scum
who are looking to take him down for good.
After some violent confrontations Han kills one of his enemies and is
sent to jail. Shortly thereafter
his buddy who is in love with Sun is sent to jail along with him.
Both are eventually let out, which precipitates an all-out battle for
the hand of Sun. |
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The DirectionKim
Di-Duk’s films tend to be beautifully filmed, poetic and deeply queasy, not
just in the copious graphic sex and violence he favors, but in his
all-too-convincing grasp of aberrant psychology.
Watching BAD GUY (and many of his other films), one gets the feeling
that it’s not just the characters onscreen
who are twisted beyond repair! Duk
revels in grotesquerie here, with wholesale brutality, bloodletting, vomiting
and all-around sickness. The
opening scene adequately sets the tone, showing the title character brutally
manhandling an innocent woman--it’s this
guy Duk asks us to emphasize with as the film goes on, even as he rapes and
smacks around his lover, brutally beats up pedestrians and generally acts like
a total asshole throughout. The
wonder of it is that Duk nearly accomplishes his goal of making the character
sympathetic. The lead actor Cho Je-Hyun
(he and the lead actress Seo Won both appeared in Duk’s THE ISLE) succeeds in
creating a complex individual who reveals a number of unexpected shades as the
film goes on, and Duk puts this “Bad Guy” though a wealth of torture equal
to that of his victims. By the end
of the film he may not deserve Sun-Hwa’s love, but you can’t say he
hasn’t earned it. |
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Vital StatisticsBAD
GUY [NABBEUN NAMJA]
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