Over half a decade since making such an impact with Nowhere To Hide, director Lee Myung-se finally returns to our screens with Duelist - but has it been worth the wait?…
When director Lee Myung-se’s Nowhere To Hide came out in the UK, even though it was some two years after it’s original release in Korea, it set the scene for a whole new powerhouse in Asian film. Suddenly there was a contender to Hong Kong’s crown for making the best action movies in the world, and it looked like Myung-se himself might very well be the next John Woo.
Originally released in 1999, the same year as Shiri and Attack The Gas Station!, and just months before JSA: Joint Security Area, Barking Dogs Never Bite, The Foul King, The Isle and Bichunmoo. this was the ignition point of Korean cinema, when the world started to take notice of South Korea’s film production. Soon directors like Park Chan-wook, Kim Ji-woon, Kim Ki-duk, and Bong Joon-ho would be - well okay - not exactly household names, but well known amongst critics worldwide. Seemingly (and very nearly in truth) from nothing, Korea had a film industry to challenge the world.
None of which could have happened without Nowhere To Hide. Fresh, exquisitely filmed, inventive. The showdown in the rain, often used to publicise the film, stands as a pivotal moment in Korean cinema - a cheeky take on John Woo’s cinematic language, in this case our hero finds himself well out of his depth against the villain he has so vehemently pursued. Korean cinema had found it’s own identity: a sardonic mix of Hong Kong action and Japanese coolness.
All of which is a rather longwinded way of saying that expectations were high for Myung-se’s first feature since. Sadly way too high…
Not that Duelist is a bad film by any means. If anything, Myung-se’s creative ability is stronger, the film is superior in production, style and editing than it’s predecessor. Like a swordplay take on Nowhere To Hide, the plot of Duelist echoes that of two police investigators attempting to track down the source of a counterfeiting ring, and apprehend a mysterious swordsman who seems to be coming between them and their quarry.
Detectives Ahn (played by Ahn Sung-kee, Musa, Chihwaseon, Arahan and the villain of Nowhere to Hide) and his young female assistant Namsoon (Ha Ji-won, Phone and Daddy-Long-Legs) are undercover agents who find their prime suspect killed by and assassin known only as Sad Eyes, initiating a cat-and-mouse game as he evades them at each corner. Slowly Namsoon and Sad Eyes begin to find themselves romantically drawn to each other, but it’s clear that a choice must be made between love and duty - with predictable consequences…
Using works by the artists Matisse and Mondrian as his inspiration (specifically “Dance” and “Manhattan” respectively) the piece is a visual delight, with a beautiful use of colour and inspired composition throughout, the editing slickly flowing from one scene to another. The duels between Namsoon and Sad Eyes increasingly turn into a seductive dance, with a soundtrack to match, often turning the whole thing into a music video - for the Gotan Project by the sounds of it! (Not that I’m complaining.)
Duelist’s flaw, unlike its predecessor, is that it fails to craft a background for the leads to create anything more than one-dimensional characters - and therefore allow you to care for them. The film even spends a lot of time building a mystery around Sad Eyes, only to have this subplot dumped in favour of a romantic final ‘dance’. (And then there’s that rather ambiguous final twist.)
It makes for a very unsubstantial, if very beautiful, movie. Enjoyable and fun, but somehow a lot more hollow than it could have been…
DVD details
Distributor: Premier Asia (UK)
This two-disc edition features a beautiful looking (and sounding) rendition of the film itself, with plenty of extras in the form of interviews, a making of, featurettes and a promotional gallery - seemingly from the original Korean disc.
But is it quite enough to stretch across two discs? I think not, and once again there's a lack of depth or inspiration to how Premier Asia/Contender have presented the material. More explanation of the pieces, not to mention better looking menus, would have improved this product no end...
