@Courtesy of NYAFF
What else could be achieved using this figure after all the movies that portrayed the hitman in every possible declination? The answer is the Korean movie The Killers, composed of four episodes, each trying to redefine the concept through a personal approach. Different directors, different styles, and different tones compose a cinematic mosaic that in the end is refreshing and entertaining.
Metamorphosis by 3 is set in a luxurious hotel bar, where a man chased by criminals finds repair only to discover to be turned into a vampire by a charming bartender played by Shim Eun-kyung, a talented actress who plays in three of the four chapters. There are distant echoes of Wong Kar-Wai in this first segment of The Killers: the suspended atmosphere, the poetic and senseless dialogues, and the use of dominant colors like red and blue to create elegant and slightly melancholic images. Kim Jong-kwan uses all of this to create a delightful, spicy story that opens the movie in the best possible way.
Contractors by Roh Deok is the chapter of The Killers intended to be the most light-minded and comic. There is almost a social commentary in this slapstick idea of a kidnapping committed by three small-time crooks who pick the wrong person with the intent to make him pay for his horrible action. The only problem is they don’t know who is going to be kidnapped, tortured, and finally killed, and it ends up being an innocent woman. The premise of the story is developed by funny, smart editing which instantly sets the right tone for the whole story. Once again Shim Eun-kyung shines as the victim, showing her versatility after having seen her in the previous segment.
Chang Hang-jun directed the third episode Everyone Is Waiting For the Man, the one which flirts with the hard-boiled most explicitly. A group of hitmen and a cop reunite in a small, desolate restaurant where a stone-cold killer is supposed to show up to arrest him or eventually kill him. The tension between the characters grows until the extreme consequences, especially when everyone understands, probably too late, that things are not the way they thought…The episode by Chang Hang-jun has a screenplay that works strongly on the genre, building up cinematic tension until the final, bloody, entertaining showdown. Using the only setting of the restaurant, the director is capable of making this space suffocating, the perfect stage for the explosion of rage and violence that the audience is expecting. The plot twists are fun, the acting believable, and visually the whole chapter develops a coherence that belongs to the hard-boiled legacy.
Silent Cinema by Lee Myung-See is probably the most stylized episode of The Killers, and this is in the end its best quality but also its limit. The director in fact relates maybe too much to the elegance of the stunning black and white images and doesn’t fully develop a story that the audience can relate to. This way his chapter is without any doubt fascinating to watch but not as thrilling as the previous ones.
As an anthology movie, The Killers offers the audience four different perspectives about the same theme, demonstrating that this kind of experiment in storytelling is still effective. Fun stories and characters can be still developed through short stories when you have a good idea and most importantly you know how to translate it into images. Our favorite episode? Probably Metamorphosis because of the weird, charming atmosphere that is capable of composing and because of Shim Eun-kyung’s gentle but charming performance. She is by far the best quality of The Killers.
Grade: B
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