A grissled cop with tendencies towards excessive force teams up with an ambitious and righteous prosecutor to track down a dangerous crime boss whom they both want desperately to catch. But their quarry resorts to devious methods to stall their investigation and eventually turn them against each other. Now the stage is set for a dangerous triangle.
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Another OK Korean movie. A fine police drama, but without the cool fights. Nah, they don't kung-fu-or-whatever they way throughout the movie, they are regular dudes.Some parts actually left me with a huge knot in the throat. I liked the acting.Plot is fine and nothing special, but it has its nice aftermath. An OK movie to watch on a Sunday while drinking a few cold-ones.
What? The Korean viewers are satisfied with such a cheep feeble imitation? Such a pity! It has a tremendous amount of pathos, authors are trying to squeeze a tears, but it doesn't work. Why? Look, there is a marvellous Korean movie in the genre: Public Enemy (Gonggongui jeog (original title), 2002). It was so impressive because it has a strong charge of dark humour in it. It's some kind of comedy from behind of which appeared the tragedy. It creates a sound contrast and effect, it makes the fictional characters believable. And why Running Wild (2006) doesn't work? Because it is uncreative set of clichés, poorly linked, unnecessary and affected dialogs, flat non-realistic characters (even if the actors are good and attractive), stupid behavior and fighting tactics (the main hero have failed almost every fight, but he, to everybody's surprise, is still alive and still arrogant — may be he's just incredibly stupid? assault team stuffs single target with bullets and keep shooting even when target already turns in a mess — may be they are lately not so busy and feel bored?) And all this are taken bloody seriously. O, man! But in hands of Master it could be not a feeble imitation, but a really movable story.
Good stuff baby! Homicide Detective JANG and Chief Inspector OH are hot on the trail of the ever elusive and seemingly untouchable Gangster boss YU.Now Jang is like a thug himself beating out confessions and going on vigilante rampages but the man is on a mission of revenge. Inspector OH , on the other hand is your clean cut, by the book career cop trying to make the world a better place by fighting organized crime. Extenuating circumstances bring the two together because they are after the same people essentially in Boss YU and his crime family. Boss YU is not one to be trifled with as he is major connected in legitimate and illegitimate ways to the top of the food chain in the gangster and political scene. He is like the Zen Master Gangster who is adept at the Art of War. He is always pulling something out to escape the clutches of his foes and those who are against him or stand in his way always face death or double cross.The tension is high and the pace never relents. Each scene plays out like a chess game that is opening up as the story unfolds revealing bits and pieces of a murderous game. The acting is superb if you like intensity and the quality of production is impressive to say the least. The characters are definitely attention getting. The tension between the three main players just burns with each pursuing a destiny that consumes them.
'Running Wild' stars Kwon Sang Woo (Love So Divine) as chain-smoking jaded homicide detective Jang, who has lost faith in the judicial system and now pursues a maverick line of police inquiry. He's after a cruel crime lord called Yu, but thus far he's been unable to pin the guy down. Also after Yu is an elite prosecutor, Oh, played by Yoo Ji Tae (Old Boy). In contrast to Jang, this character is obsessive that rules and procedures must be obeyed. I think you can guess the next bit! Jang and Oh's paths cross and this mismatched pair form an uneasy alliance to bring the bad guy down. But to do this, they have to fight fire with fire and break the rules.This sounds quite good on paper but sadly it doesn't work on screen. Maybe it was too ambitious as a directorial debut from Kim Sung Soo and most certainly it was miscast. Kwon Sang Woo is best known for light romantic comedies and a host of tear-jerking TV dramas in which he excels. I can't blame the actor if he wants to break away from that mould, but somehow he's just too handsome. So having unkempt hair, sporting an incongruous moustache and shouting a lot doesn't convince me that he's been through hell and high water in a police department.There are a lot of action scenes, most of which sadly fail to impress. Apparently, director Kim Sung Soo is a protégé of Park Chan Wook. He still has a lot to learn. If you want to see a great Korean film about a maverick cop, then check out 'Public Enemy'.
