Gwangbokjeol teuksa

I can't tell you how let down I was by this movie. We all wanted to turn it off within 45 minutes. The two leads play jailbirds who plot an escape that ends up having unintended consequences both for themselves and for their jailers. The humor is terribly unfunny, and the characters are completely uninteresting and unlikeable. The bigger loser of the two, and his intensely annoying and unpleasant girlfriend were particularly painful to watch. In a better movie, the Shawshank homages would have been clever or funny, but here they were just a reminder of how lame this movie was in comparison to better projects.

This came as a particular surprise given that the director is the same man who brought us the fantastic and original Attack the Gas Station, and the near-brilliant (though tragically-flawed) Kick the Moon. I thought the man exuded humor and quirky moments, but apparently he can make a piece of hack work like anyone else. Too bad. I would think that perhaps the humor didn't translate well from Korean, except his previous two movies were hilarious. Here's hoping this was just a fluke, and he has years of great movies left in him.