Seoul Raiders is a drama with dark humor, satire reflecting some dark side of human in violence or ego that that could be converged into something different form of expression as well. In this film Seoul Raiders, Tony vividly indicated the sheer fact that it is true there are some people who cannot feel be content with himself/herself without indulging in the form of some sort of "violence" or "forceful position" in order to merely protect his/her ego and bring back his/her mental balance despite the fact that such violence or forceful position merely accelerate his/her thirsty of seeking some pain in feeling dark mal-conditioned self-destructive - nature of harming others. The core of this film is, I assume, that the dark feeling Tony expressed. Lam was about to soak into the sea of irrational excessive hate at the verge of humanity as if Lam was tired of being only moderate and good. I suspect that Lam had felt useless in solving/helping something/someone or situations - say, at the beginning of this film- if Lam was being only humane good and gentle, which may have had undermined his sense of direction of his life. Lam was, however, somehow, recovered from the verge. Lam completed his job and brought back his confidence then recovered his damaged ego and reputation in his carrier.
But psychological pressures and some shadows in Lam's character seemed to have remained, which is enough cruel to torn Lam's humane goodness apart and to bring him back to the indulgence into the pain in harming which is, in fact, a simple biological chemical response in human brain to the stimuli of seeking some sort of feeling of achievement in fact doing harms by violence is not anything achievement but is merely a result of simple physical power from body movement - nothing more than that. However, unfortunately, some people are wrongly confused by malice-manipulation AS IF some violence to others or harming others are only tangible unattainable achievements which are only be able to be done by someone who can be real cruel only with non-humane sense, which utterly wrongly puts force on people to the verge of humane, which inevitably devastatingly completely destroys his/her humane goodness in its original nature. That humane goodness is, nevertheless, only key to survive on this globe. That humane goodness only made people humane. However, somehow, people are/were forced to be put on the helpless non-exit unnecessary competition in "achieving" such simple violence and non-humane sometimes when people feels something helpless in his/her situation in seeking self-destruction or seeking numbness in pain in harming others which means harming himself herself with 'spotless mind' in recognizing/analyzing what s/he does as in this film Lam did. (well, besides this film and Tony, I should say though
Some people who are not able to understand or say who are not even trying to find out what s/he is doing in harming others cannot be seen as same as Lam or someone like that. Such people are simply lacking in courage of facing with what harming others irrationally unreasonably only for fun meant to himself/herself and others at the end of the day) ...then What would happen to Lam - Tony's expression in Raiders series- in next Raiders????
The subdued and thick darkness in the Tony's expression in Seoul Raiders about the risk of human nature was, that was why, essential core in this film as a warning to anyone who never thought of being indulge into any violence.
If there is any another version without the last plane battle, the onsen scene....for dialog between Tony and other actors actresses in order to concentrate on deepening the Lam's character because Tony expressed that tone (and other actors/actresses too) although I think I can imagine how much and how far action scenes are hard and difficult for any stuffs, not only for actors/actresses. But I just felt that this film could have shown something more than the film shown.... Deepening the Lam's character is, I strongly believe, a quite right direction of this film in maximizing and enhancing the prospective attractiveness in this script and film by the excellence in the depth in expression as always by Tony that differentiates the series from any other 'action' film.
All in all, a lovely dark quick wit film Besides the drama nature of the film, what I was impressed was that I simply love many scenes in this film since those Tony's real quick wit and genuine parody of "action film"
I will not tell which scene it was but I especially loved one parody sequence in the film very much. All in all, I think the Raiders series and this is lovely and dark.
SHU CHI (as she was in Gorgeous) and Ritchie added the tone of drama as well, as Hiroshi Abe (impressive caricature of Yakima as a human with humane weakness that was very memorable co-play with Tony)(and Toru Nakamura) did in Tokyo Raiders I guess.
I guess if someone who is found of tasting the later series of Detective Crusou, you may like this darkness as well.
