Busan 2022: The Boys Movie Review Sol Kyunggu Plays The Lone Good Police Officer In Overwrought Dramatisation Of A True Case Of Miscarriage Of Justice
- Jung Ji-yeon's drama The Boys, starring Seol Kyung-gu, reveals the true story of three young men illegally imprisoned for robbery and murder.
- The cast is superb and the film is brilliantly executed, but the story devolves into a ridiculous courtroom showdown, leaving the audience feeling manipulated.
2/5 stars
In Jung Ji-yeon's latest drama "Boys," which recreates a real-life story of illegal imprisonment and high-level corruption, Seol Kyung-gu plays the only good cop who dares to take charge of a dubious department.
Yoo Joon-san, Yeom Hye-ran, and Ho Sung-tae make for a strong cast, but Jung's sensational approach to this truly silent story quickly devolves into heavy, overwrought melodrama.
The action takes place in the countryside of Wanju province in South Korea in 1999. The story begins with three young men being hastily convicted of robbery and murder after they apparently break into a small supermarket, bound and gagged the family that owns it. stole money and valuables.
The elderly grandmother of the family died in the incident, and the children confessed to the crime shortly after being arrested.
A year later, Detective Hwang Joon Cheol (Sung) is transferred to the district and informed that the condemned children are actually innocent.
His attempts to reopen the case are quickly thwarted, but Hwang is convinced that his boss, Choi Woo-sung (Yoo), coerced the confession and tampered with the evidence.
The film chronicles his increasingly desperate efforts over the next 17 years to mount a new trial and reverse this egregious miscarriage of justice.
Chang has been producing acclaimed feature films since the early 1980s and remains a loyal cinematographer even at the age of 75. The boys are skillfully played, and the actors are consistently wonderful.
© Courtesy of the South China Morning Post Sol Kyung-gu (bottom left) as Detective Hwang Joon-chul and Ho Sung-tae as Hwang's long-time subordinate in The Boys photo.Saul is perfect as a life-weary detective willing to distance himself, Serpico -style, from the rest of the department in order to serve justice. Yoo Jung Sang is a particularly obnoxious addition, oozing nauseating arrogance and grumpy pride.
Ho Sung-tae provides much-needed comic relief to the tense trial as stubborn underling Hwang in his quest to outwit his superiors, only for his character to all but disappear in the second half of the film.
Unfortunately, Chang loses control of the drama as The Boys veers from police procedural to righteous crusade, heading for an absurdly theatrical courtroom showdown.
© Courtesy of the South China Morning Post Sol Kyung-gu as Hwang Joon-chul in a still from the movie The Boys.Driven by the undeniable nobility of Hwang's cause, the film grabs the audience's heartstrings and unashamedly tugs at them. What should have been a truly cathartic climax turns into a theatrical spectacle of cartoonish proportions that leaves the audience exhausted and driven.
What happened to these young men is undoubtedly dumb, but The Boys makes viewers feel like they are being manipulated, not touched.
This article was originally published in the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), a leading news agency in China and Asia.
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