"Soo" ("Su," South Korea)Directed by Choi Yang-il (Yoichi Sai). Starring Ji Jin-hee, Kang Seong-yeon, Oh Man-seok.
It's bloody and brutal, and harrowingly so. Japanese-born Korean director Choi Yang-il (Yoichi Sai) brings the Korean audience a hardboiled vengeance film with a slightly different flavor.
When you think of blood-splattered retaliation, Park Chan-wook's vengeance trilogy or Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" series may come to mind. But imagine such a film stripped of fancy cinematographic techniques and devoid of stylishly choreographed action sequences. Every gesture and grimace is meticulously planned, according to the director. Yet Choi keeps the camera at a certain distance to portray the no-cut skirmishes.
The product is heightened realism, and you believe in the intense violence and the raw human instinct for survival.
[...] In Korean, "soo" means water, the very essence of life. Throughout the film Soo seeks to free his brother from "han" or spiteful grudge, as well as his own soul from staggering guilt. Even the bad guy wishes to spare his father the fires of hell. Choi's lasting imagery of water washing away blood suggests the pervasive human instinct to survive and the desire to purge oneself of one's impurities. More
My first published review as a film critic for The Korea Times. "Soo" was an extremely distressing cinematic exerience, but the review ended up at more Web sites than usual (though many a time uncredited -- how annoying).
