Who's the innocent sheep here? South Korean cinema is, of course, exclusive and sometimes exotic. Nevertheless, products from this production enter the international market, where they receive well-deserved recommendations not only in a critical environment, but also interest the audience. For example, fans of the genre of horror films often learn about the novelties from South Korean producers, comparable in quality to the masters of the genre from Japan (you can recall ' Puppetry' (2004)). A separate topic is the tapes telling the tragic stories of the Korean War (example - ' Operation Chromet' (2016)). But in the canvas of detective thrillers, Asians are not the last in the cinematic world. Pictures such as 'Seven Days' (2007) and 'Help' (2012) are definitely worthy of attention among fans of the genre.
And almost certainly in a number of the above films, you can put a detective drama ' The Client' (2011), combined with a demonstration of the trial of the defendant, whose guilt, of course, the ambitious lawyer doubts, but the prosecutor fiercely tries to prove that the man on the bench unconditionally killed his wife and hid the body (he was never found), while the prosecutor sometimes uses not quite honest techniques. However, perhaps undeservedly, 'Customer' did not find responses from international distributors and until then was known only to his native, South Korean viewer. But with the development of the global network now and our viewer can be happy to get acquainted with 'Customer'.
Moreover, for acquaintance it will be quite enough unexpected plot twists. Starting the film as a classic thriller, where the viewer must obviously take the side of the accused, because the creators ' The client' so deftly manipulate the audience, presenting the character as a nice guy, who you think that he is the alleged killer only at the last moment. And again, thanks to numerous plot twists in unexpected directions, gradually each of the characters begins to perceive completely different in comparison with the initial impressions. But with such a deep work of writers, a potential viewer, I would like to warn you that you need to be patient, because it may seem that there are too many plot changes, and the dialogue is already excessive. But the most interesting, I assure you, awaits us all in the final. In general, as it should be according to the laws of the genre.
And it is not surprising that with such a rich plot, the actors tried very hard, because the embodiment of the image in such a film is an opportunity to show themselves from different sides, otherwise, if you show yourself straightforward, you can make you think that the actor of a medium hand and with a complex, multilayered character could not cope. But, fortunately, in 'Customer' it didn't happen. Even with our traditional perception of South Koreans, which we take on the same face, to get confused in the characters ' Client' is unlikely to succeed. Only if you follow the action 'Customer' carefully (this is another recommendation to a potential viewer). I can say that Ha Jon-woo (played a lawyer), Park Hee-soon (prosecutor) and Chan Hyuk (accused) played at a high level and well embodied the images, making the picture very unprosaic.
A worthwhile film of the detective genre from South Korean filmmakers, which, if you watch it carefully, can bring pleasure to fans of thrillers and forensic investigations, where the main characters are not at all what we perceived them at first.
7 out of 10