TROUBLESHOOTER (2010)

Kyung-gu Sol is a troubleshooter. Today he's on the case of a cheating wife, but when he enters the hotel room to take some pictures he instead finds a dead woman, a video of the murder playing on the television and the police on the way. Suddenly he gets a mysterious phone call telling him how to escape and that if he follows orders he'll be given the murder video that will clear his name. Kang fights his way out of the hotel, but now he's on the run from the law and that's just the beginning of his troubles.

TROUBLESHOOTER is great! Heart pounding action, funny dialogue (I loved how the police detective kept threatening to kill his assistant), great acting, nice camerawork, superfast pace, excellent supporting cast, but best of all: Kyung-gu Sol kicking ass. This dude is awesome! Highly recommended for action fans.

NO MERCY (2010)

Baby buttfucking Jesus this movie needs an editor.  Clocking in at only 123 minutes, you'd think that'd be a perfectly reasonable runtime for a SEVEN / OLDBOY clone, but you'd be wrong.  Cause this sucker drags hard.

 

Kyung-gu Sol plays a medical examiner who is asked to join in the murder investigation of a young woman found dismembered on the shore of a local river. Kyung-gu Sol (like the viewer) thinks this is a routine murder investigation, but the murder is actually the first piece to a puzzle.  Things start out well enough (although the speed zoom accompanied by a loud whoosh sound during the opening scene was completely unneeded) with the autopsy, criminal investigation and introduction of the various detectives and police, but then the story starts spiraling out of control and before you can say "What the fuck is this guy doing now?!" Kyung-gu Sol is running around like a lunatic attacking people, chasing people, stealing a dudes sperm straight out of his balls, tampering with evidence, beating a disabled dude with his own crutch, cutting a dog with a scalpel, breaking into buildings, playing chicken with a police car, crying a lot, punching a mirror, getting a nail rammed in his back, crying even more, operating a fax machine incorrectly and openly admiring the nipples, navel and "perfectly shaped pubic hair" of a murder victim...oh wait, he did that before he lost his mind.

 

The basic story idea for NO MERCY is interesting, but they could have easily cut out 30 minutes of the movie.  And while they're at it, lose the annoying detective that yells all of his lines.  I hated that dude.  I understand his character was suppose to be annoying (I think?), but he genuinely was annoying and added nothing to the investigation (or movie).

 

Worth watching if you're a fan of murder investigation thrillers, but don't set your hopes up too high.

 

[As an experiment, I rewatched part of the film on 2x speed and it was definitely better, but then again, I already knew the story.]

PUBLIC ENEMY RETURNS (2008)

[Update 02/03/2021: Going to rewatch and fix this review.]

 

As you don't remember I liked the original PUBLIC ENEMY and absolutely hated the second one. So. What's the verdict on Part 3? It's just so-so.

 

On the positive side, Kang Cheol-jung is back to being a homicide detective as opposed the boring public prosecutor he played the Part 2. Also the villain (Jae-yeong Jeong) in this ones pretty good, but there's not enough action and it's way too long! The thing I enjoyed about the original was Officer Cheol-jung was so goddamn fucked up he literally skirted the line between police officer and gangster. The method he used to catch criminals were highly illegal and he had zero manners (he even took a shit on the sidewalk at one point). This time around he has an reputation of being a loose cannon, but he's really not that bad.

 

I really, really wanted this movie to be as awesome as the original, but it's not. Maybe worth a rental, but probably not.

 

Part 1 - Public Enemy (2002)

Part 2 - Another Public Enemy (2005)

ANOTHER PUBLIC ENEMY (2005)

What...the...f?  When they named this movie Another Public Enemy, they literally meant another Public Enemy!  As in another movie called Public Enemy with some of the same character names and same actors, but all playing their roles completely different!  What in the hell is going on here?

In the original film, the character Chul-jung Kang (played brilliantly by Kyung-gu Sol) was this insane homicide detective who was so wild that he was damn near a gangster himself. Constantly beating people up, pissing off his supervisor, taking bribes and even at one point, taking a shit on a public sidewalk then getting his fecal matter (a.k.a. poo-poo) all over the murder weapon!  (And they called Harry Callahan "Dirty"!)  In this bizarre second film, there's still a character named Chul-jung Kang, once again played by Kyung-gu Sol, but this time he's a by-the-book public prosecutor! And the story has nothing at all to do with this first movie!

I went into this movie hoping to see a bigger and even crazier story about Det. Kang kicking even more ass than before, but nope.  Now he's a prosecutor who spends the majority of his time either super happy or crying.  And never once shitting on a single sidewalk!!!  The best way I can describe APE, is imagine if when they released LETHAL WEAPON 2, Mel Gibson was no longer a crazy, loose cannon cop, but instead, Perry Mason! That's what happened here.

What's even weirder is the guy who directed Part 1 is the same guy who directed this head scratching installment. Very strange. I didn’t hate the movie, but the story is just so...boring and lame that it’s hard to care what happens.  Plus, the film is 148 minutes long!!! What the fuck? Even as a stand alone movie, it starts out okay, but wears out it's welcome by at least 40 minutes.  Also, what's up with this series having a nearly 100% all-male cast?  That's not cool.

 

Part 1 - Public Enemy (2002)
Part 3 - Public Enemy Returns (2008)