In the promising beginning of “Taxi Driver”, the action takes place in the Chinese province of Yanbian, where the Korean Gu-Nam, mired in debt, abandons a taxi out of despair and agrees to perform a contract murder, for which he needs to go to Seoul. “Taxi Driver” is a pure drama with a deep penetration into the everyday world of ethnic Koreans of China, emphasized by a calm minimalistic musical background.
The thriller “Killer” following “Taxi Driver” is perhaps the most memorable part, the tension of which in places directly spills out of the screen, not without reason promising a bloody ending. The acting game of Ha Jung Wu, realistically conveying the desperation of illegal Gu-Nam in the metropolis, is worthy of all praise.
However, gradually the realism of the film begins to dissolve into the more ridiculous scenario. A semi-fantastic escape scene with patrol cars, by the will of evil fate, knocking down each other and several other policemen, opens a series of events that fragment reality into dozens of inappropriate action scenes in which Gu-Nam and all his friends will be represented exclusively by cars, then running away, then killing.
In this comparison with the machine, direct contact plays a special role: the characters of the film fundamentally reject firearms, preferring to them the simplest tools like axes or bones.
According to the director, with the bone scene, he intended to change the entire atmosphere of the film, removing realism from it. However, this approach does not add anything, but only leads to the primitivization of characters. The viewer can no longer empathize with anyone.
By the end of the third part, the very space of action is bent, shrinking to axes and kitchen knives. A fairly familiar painting called thrash.
3 out of 10
Original