Public Enemy DVD > Reviews > The Name's Kang... Detective Kang.

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Good
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	An entertaining, action - packed thriller .
Disadvantages:	Not a particulary original plot

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Regular readers of my Ciao reviews will know that I appreciate Asian cinema. Film makers from Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, China and Korea are increasingly making high budget films that could compete with anything coming out of Hollywood... if people would give foreign language movies a chance.
Over the past few years, these films have become more popular, with released such as "The Ring", "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "The House of Flying Daggers" receiving critical acclaim.
Hollywood has a habit of realising how good these movies are, then buying the rights to remake them, often with pretty poor results (look at the remakes of "The Ring", "Juon" and "Dark Water" for proof !!).
Fortunately, the worldwide DVD market allows us to view these films in the original language before Hollywood gets it's machette into the stories.

One such film that could be worth a look is the movie "Public Enemy"...

Detective Kang Chul-joong is a cop living on the edge. He has a very poor record of arrests at work, extorts and accepts bribes from suspects and prefers a more lethal form of justice for those who cross his path. Kang is not alone and, in fact, his whole department is under investigation from Internal Affairs.
During a stake out on a dark, wet night, Kang needs to leave the protection of the observation unit to find a toilet. After "doing his business" on a street corner, a passer-by wearing a dark hooded mac bumps into him, knocking him to the ground.
As Kang's temper boils over, he calls to the man to stop. The hooded character does stop, but only long enough to turn and slash Kang's face with a knife. The man then drops the knife and walks off into the rainy night.

A week later, the bodies of an elderly man and woman are found in their home with multiple stab wounds. As Kang puts two and two together, he realises that he had an encounter with the prime suspect, and retrieves the knife for examination. Tests confirm that the same knife was used, but the only evidence is a set of fingerprints belonging to Detective Kang.
During routine investigations, Kang interviews the elderly victim's son, Cho Gyn-hwan - a highly respected fund manager dealing in multi-million dollar transactions on a day to day basis. Kang suspects that Cho could somehow be connected with the brutal killings, but cannot find any evidence. With no one willing to believe him, and with the killer still at large, Kang goes after Cho, determined to prove his suspicions.

What follows is over two hours of a thrilling cat and mouse chase, with a killer and a cop trying to outwit each other.

Whilst "Public Enemy" is a top-notch classy crime thriller, it also has some fantastic action sequences and some very funny comedy throughout the movie. The Korean director, Kang Woo-seok, has studied what makes traditional Hollywood movies so popular, and included the best bits in this film. The best way to describe the film is like "Dirty Harry" meets "Pulp Fiction" meets "Columbo" meets "Unbreakable" meets "Lethal Weapon" meets Laurel & Hardy !
The soundtrack, and even some of the lines, are very much like a Tarantino movie. Detective Kang even has a very Samuel L. Jackson-esque line before he beats his suspects...

"No money, I beat him. Don't listen to me, I beat him. His face upsets me, I beat him. There's a whole staduim of guys who got beaten by me."

Much of the comedy element in the film is slapstick which could have come straight out of any Laurel and Hardy film. One of the funniest scenes is an interrogation of a suspected loan shark by Kang. The suspect is handcuffed into an office chair on wheels, and every time he answers a question that Kang does not like the answer to, he is kicked across to the other side of the room - promptly wheeling himself back into position. Throughout the film, people are getting slapped around the head, typical of many Marx Brother's scenes.

The movie is also very violent. There is a lot of one on one martial arts fights, in which you can hear bones breaking and flesh tearing. The murder scenes, as you would expect, are also quite grim. The scariest thing about the movie, however, is how cold and emotionless the killer is. As the movie progresses, you see him kill innocent people for very insignificant reasons.

Much of the films success comes down to it's two main actors.

Kyung-gu Sol is totally believable as the detective without morals. For this role, he put on 20kgs in weight and spent months training with a martial arts choreographer. He takes the role and creates a knife-edge that Kang lives upon - on one side is the cop who wants to keep the streets a safe place and eliminate public enemies, whilst the other is a darker place - almost on the edge of insanity where corruption and brutality are commonplace.

Sung-jae Lee is the smooth, charismatic suspect Cho Gyn-hwan whom Kang want so badly to bring down. His portrayal of a high-flying businessman with a dark side is also very believable - hence the other characters in the movie would not believe that this pillar of society could be responsible for such a dreadful crime.

Credit must also go to the Director, Woo-suk Kang. He resisted temptation to adapt the storyline and sub-plots from Hollywood movies into a traditional Korean martial arts movie. Instead, he made a "cross-breed" movie, with the best aspects from both Hollywood and Asian cinema.
This was a brave move, but was fortunately welcomed by the Korean cinemagoers, and worldwide viewers of this movie.

The DVD:

The DVD is released under the Tartan Asia Extreme label as a Region 0 disc. This means that the DVD is region free, and can be played on most DVD players throughout the world.
The DVD is presented in widescreen, so you get to see the film as the director intended (i.e. nothing missing off the sides of the screen).
The picture and sound quality is excellent, as you'd expect from a DVD. Some Asian DVDs are lower quality, or very low budget, but I am pleased to say that this DVD does not fall into either of these catergories.

There are a lot of extra features on the DVD, as follows...

Behind The Scenes -

As you might expect, this is a look at the making of the movie. I personally enjoy watching these, as it gives you an insight into all the effort that goes into making the movie, and also gives you a look at the real life actors, rather than the characters that they portray.

Deleted Scenes -

There are a number of deleted scenes that did not make it to the final cut, and here is your chance to see them. The fact that they were not included in the movie should give some indication that they have no significance to the plot !
One scene that was quite nice to watch was an interaction between Kang and his daughters. This shows a human side to the gritty detective, although perhaps it is best to leave his personal side to your imagination.

Outtakes -

There are quite a few out-takes of varying quality and entertainment value, most of which are caused by the actors forgetting their lines. It is, however, another opportunity to see the stars getting slapped - perhaps a bit harder than planned !!

Music Video -

This is a music video from the soundtrack, with scenes from the film shown. The music is pretty mediocre, and the quality of the video is poor, so they would have been better off leaving this feature out. You never even get to find out the bands name - it's displayed briefly in Korean !

Original Trailer -

The original theatrical trailer is included in the features, although this also seems quite pointless - you've already bought (or rented) the DVD, so why would you need to see the trailer ?!? It's not like your going to watch that and then think, "Hmmm, I don't know if I want to watch this !".

Asia Extreme Trailers -

Slightly more relevant than the trailer above, you can also view trailers from other Asian movies in this collection. The trailers include "The Happiness of the Katakuris", "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance", "A Snake Of June", "Dark Water" and "Shiri".

The DVD itself is easy to navigate. The menu has short repeating clips of the movie, and is done in the style of a newspaper. There is a piece of music playing in the background that sounds as though it's come straight out of a Tarantino movie.

Overall Opinion:

There is still some reluctance from many people to view foreign language movies. Subtitles or dubbing (voiceovers) can prove distracting for some people, whilst for others they just have a negative approach to any movies that don't come from Hollywood.
The subtitles are clear throughout the movie, and there are not long lines of dialogue to read through.
I would strongly recommend that these people give this film a chance. "Public Enemy" is like a bridge between Hollywood and Asian cinema. It has a typical Hollywood plot, Hollywood style characters, yet it has the class and style associated with Asian movies.
There is nothing in this film that we haven't seen before in a huge number of movies, but the way that the director and actors portray this style is excellent and enjoyable.

The film was very successful in Asia, and the DVD release has proved popular in the Western world too. As a result of this, a sequel has now been released - look out for a review on "Another Public Enemy" appearing here soon !!

The DVD is available from many good stockists under the Tartan label, for between £9.99 and £19.99.
 

Pictures for the review

Display pictures

Kang and Cho... head to head.