Hawyi(Yeo Jin-goo) looks like a normal high school student on the surface, but he has a dark secret shared with his five 'fathers' in a nice house located in some country area outside Seoul, and the tense opening sequence shows us how his life got involved with these people when he was very young. I will not describe it in details, but let's say this taut moment has some good surprises under its suspenseful mood including where young Hawyi is kept by Seok-tae(Kim Yoon-Seok) and his gangs.
They could kill young Hwayi after their plan to collect the ransom was botched in the end, but he was instead taken under their wings, and that was the beginning of a strange alternative family. 14 years have passed, and Hwayi is now their loving son, and all of them are his dads while Yeong-joo(Lim Ji-eun), Seok-tae's wife who was a captive just like Hwayi at that time, is like a caring mom to him. Although he has never gone through any proper education in their isolated world, Seok-tae and his gangs have taught Hwayi lots of things including driving and sharpshooting, and, as revealed later in the movie, he is a very good apprentice to make his criminal fathers proud.
Because Hwayi is approaching to adulthood, Jin-seong(Jang Hyeon-seong), the thoughtful and sophisticated member of the bunch who manages their dirty business, thinks Hwayi deserves to have a life better than theirs. While he can lead a fairly good criminal career with his learned skills, Hwayi also has a considerable artistic talent(we see several good sketches in his notebook at one point), and Jin-seong is willing to help him in any possible ways.
However, it seems that Seok-tae, the leader of the bunch(while casually calling other fathers 'dad', Hwayi always calls him 'father'), has the other idea. Hwayi was frequently terrorized by the monster in the basement where he was locked in, and, though it is apparently a pigment of his imagination possibly fueled by his horrible situation, the monster keeps haunting him, and Seok-tae takes a drastic measure to solve Hwayi's problem once for all; he is going to push Hwayi more deeply into the dark, ruthless criminal world of him and others.
The movie gets darker and bloodier after Hwayi directly participates in his dads' works and then accidentally(or fatefully) learns about himself more than he imagined, and the movie drives its story to the destined point with a vengeance through its volatile mix of family melodrama and crime drama. Some of its surprises can be easily predicted in advance, but they strike us hard with emotional impacts, and that accordingly pushes its main characters to their inevitable conflict calling for blood and revenge.
The director Jang Joon-hwan, who made a long-awaited comeback with this film, shows here that the potential shown in his exceptional debut film "Save the Green Planet!"(2003) is not eroded at all. While it does not have that loony raw power of his debut film, "Hwayi" is a compelling genre piece packed with good action/suspense scenes and accompanying gray ambiance. There is always a foreboding sense of fatalism at every corner of the screen, and it is effectively manifested through its gloomy spaces including the certain crucial characters' lone residence surrounded by demolished houses.
Things get complicated as the police and other underworld figures come into the picture, but the movie stays focused on the love/hate relationship between Hwayi and Seok-tae, and the performances by Kim Yoon-seok and Yeo Jin-goo ably carry the movie even when the plot become shaky at times. As shown in "The Yellow Sea"(2010), another dark South Korean crime thriller drama driven by the darkness of human heart, Kim Yoon-seok is good at conveying the steely brutality behind his plain but commanding appearance, and young actor Yeo Jin-goo does more than holding his own place amid the adult co-actors. The movie is essentially his character's coming-of-age drama, and Yeo Jin-goo is believable in every step as his character is transformed from a boy fearing his own monster to a man finally engulfing it. In that aspect, the movie reminds me a lot of David Michôd's "Animal Kingdom"(2010), which was also about the sad loss of innocence in the criminal world.
While it loses its steam around the ending, "Hwayi" is a gripping noir drama supported by its skillful direction and convincing performances. Like several notable South Korean films, the movie also reflects the dark sides of modern South Korean society through its gritty tale, and there is an interesting aspect associated with social class issues when hidden motives and connections are revealed during a chilling encounter between two contrasting characters. Its view on the modern South Korean society, which is still dominated by Confucian patriarchal ideas and haunted by the history of violence during the 20th Century, is ultimately pessimistic, but its somber ending comes with a small glimmer of hope none the less(There is a tiny but crucial scene after the end credit, so don't leave the screening room too early).
They could kill young Hwayi after their plan to collect the ransom was botched in the end, but he was instead taken under their wings, and that was the beginning of a strange alternative family. 14 years have passed, and Hwayi is now their loving son, and all of them are his dads while Yeong-joo(Lim Ji-eun), Seok-tae's wife who was a captive just like Hwayi at that time, is like a caring mom to him. Although he has never gone through any proper education in their isolated world, Seok-tae and his gangs have taught Hwayi lots of things including driving and sharpshooting, and, as revealed later in the movie, he is a very good apprentice to make his criminal fathers proud.
Because Hwayi is approaching to adulthood, Jin-seong(Jang Hyeon-seong), the thoughtful and sophisticated member of the bunch who manages their dirty business, thinks Hwayi deserves to have a life better than theirs. While he can lead a fairly good criminal career with his learned skills, Hwayi also has a considerable artistic talent(we see several good sketches in his notebook at one point), and Jin-seong is willing to help him in any possible ways.
However, it seems that Seok-tae, the leader of the bunch(while casually calling other fathers 'dad', Hwayi always calls him 'father'), has the other idea. Hwayi was frequently terrorized by the monster in the basement where he was locked in, and, though it is apparently a pigment of his imagination possibly fueled by his horrible situation, the monster keeps haunting him, and Seok-tae takes a drastic measure to solve Hwayi's problem once for all; he is going to push Hwayi more deeply into the dark, ruthless criminal world of him and others.
The movie gets darker and bloodier after Hwayi directly participates in his dads' works and then accidentally(or fatefully) learns about himself more than he imagined, and the movie drives its story to the destined point with a vengeance through its volatile mix of family melodrama and crime drama. Some of its surprises can be easily predicted in advance, but they strike us hard with emotional impacts, and that accordingly pushes its main characters to their inevitable conflict calling for blood and revenge.
The director Jang Joon-hwan, who made a long-awaited comeback with this film, shows here that the potential shown in his exceptional debut film "Save the Green Planet!"(2003) is not eroded at all. While it does not have that loony raw power of his debut film, "Hwayi" is a compelling genre piece packed with good action/suspense scenes and accompanying gray ambiance. There is always a foreboding sense of fatalism at every corner of the screen, and it is effectively manifested through its gloomy spaces including the certain crucial characters' lone residence surrounded by demolished houses.
Things get complicated as the police and other underworld figures come into the picture, but the movie stays focused on the love/hate relationship between Hwayi and Seok-tae, and the performances by Kim Yoon-seok and Yeo Jin-goo ably carry the movie even when the plot become shaky at times. As shown in "The Yellow Sea"(2010), another dark South Korean crime thriller drama driven by the darkness of human heart, Kim Yoon-seok is good at conveying the steely brutality behind his plain but commanding appearance, and young actor Yeo Jin-goo does more than holding his own place amid the adult co-actors. The movie is essentially his character's coming-of-age drama, and Yeo Jin-goo is believable in every step as his character is transformed from a boy fearing his own monster to a man finally engulfing it. In that aspect, the movie reminds me a lot of David Michôd's "Animal Kingdom"(2010), which was also about the sad loss of innocence in the criminal world.
While it loses its steam around the ending, "Hwayi" is a gripping noir drama supported by its skillful direction and convincing performances. Like several notable South Korean films, the movie also reflects the dark sides of modern South Korean society through its gritty tale, and there is an interesting aspect associated with social class issues when hidden motives and connections are revealed during a chilling encounter between two contrasting characters. Its view on the modern South Korean society, which is still dominated by Confucian patriarchal ideas and haunted by the history of violence during the 20th Century, is ultimately pessimistic, but its somber ending comes with a small glimmer of hope none the less(There is a tiny but crucial scene after the end credit, so don't leave the screening room too early).