2.5, Korea

Eye for an Eye

2008 / Kwak Kyung-taek & Ayn Kwon-tae > What starts off as a captivating cops & robbers chase suddenly breaks down into a predictable Hollywood action mash-up with a tinge of melodrama thrown in. That’s plenty sad because not only did we have the return of the great Han Suk-kyu (with shiny, silver hair, at that) but also another attempt by Kwak to replicate the magic from Friend. Whereas Typhoon was a bloated, bland epic, Eye for an Eye had the scale, intensity and setting to make something of itself, but it just never could build on its premise. Every year now, I wait for Korea to release an action flick that takes the genre to the next level, but they continue to regress. Was 2005’s A Bittersweet Life the death of the slick, intelligent actioner?

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