[K-FILM REVIEWS] 이태원 살인사건 (Where the Truth Lies)

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that, no matter how much criticism the 2MB junta and its Draconian ruling methods have earned, the issues Koreans are faced with today are nothing compared to what the pre-Seoul Olympics Korea looked like. Yet, most of the generation which grew up under military rule, participated in student protests and set the stage for what would become the industry's renaissance (the so-called 386 generation) still refuses to completely abandon itself in complacent escapism. This positions them right in the constantly shrinking middle of an interesting three-tiered generational gap developing vis-a-vis the country's relationship with culture: older viewers, who with Park Jung-Hee's rule first experienced a modicum of "prosperity" compared to the bleak situation they faced in the 40s and 50s (at the expense of personal freedom), tend to favor shallow escapism drenched in traditional mores, or in the form of vicarious thrills -- what drives most successful dramas on TV these days, recent hits like 찬란한 유산 (Brilliant Legacy) and 솔약국집 아들들 (My Too Perfect Sons) being the perfect example. You'll rarely see this older viewership respond to challenging works or openly request meatier products, films which criticize the status quo and ask important questions about Korea's modern society, which is one of the many reasons why only shallow crowd pleasers like 해운대 (Haeundae) or works reeking of the good old "city slickers" syndrome like 워낭소리 (Old Partner) manage to lure the ajumma back to the theater, for the first time since Shin Sung-Il was prancing around like Marlon Brando in the glorious 60s.

On the other end of the scale, today's youngsters are a different "species" altogether. Unlike the generation which helped the resurrection of Korean cinema, young viewers with a very strong interest in cinema as a cultural entity, the teenagers and young couples who fill many a recent blockbuster's box office records are there to be part of the social event more than out of pure cinematic passion, and often deride and/or ignore anything which dares to challenge the idea that films are background noise for petting, munching junk food and writing dissertations with their oh-so-freaking-fancy cell phones. Lee Dong-Jin, Kim Young-Jin and other major critics recently focused an entire (tremendously fascinating) roundtable discussion on the matter, wondering what is the reason behind the recent conflicting results of films helmed by top directors like Bong Joon-Ho and Park Chan-Wook. I'm with Lee here, as the fact films like 마더 (Mother) and 박쥐 (Thirst) still manage to sell two-three million tickets out of the directors' brand name alone is exceptional and pretty much unrivaled elsewhere, but if you take into account that generational gap, then you'll see how anything which doesn't favor the two extremes (complacent elders and shallow youngsters) is increasingly losing steam in the eye of the Korean moviegoer. Yes, 추격자 (The Chaser) still sold five million tickets, and if shown today, 살인의 추억 (Memories of Murder) would still manage to do quite well, but you really wonder how long this is going to last, before the 386 generation and their gritty realism and social protest are completely obliterated, sacrificed at the altar of an audience which increasingly chastises filmmaking done with dignity, intelligence and guts. 이태원 살인사건 (Where the Truth Lies) might just be the latest victim of this ever-changing landscape.

Perhaps director Hong Gi-Seon would beg to differ, he would state that a film which cost nothing more than 1.5 billion won and managed to sell a healthy 530,000 tickets (surprisingly breaking even) could never be considered a victim of the system and the audience which fuels it. But the real event this film was based on is a blueprint just as fascinating as the Hwaseong serial murders which influenced Memories of Murder. Done with a little more ambition and gusto, it could have shown that this strange limbo the "sons of Gwangju" find themselves in is just a momentary period of transition which has pushed the kind of stories they'd like to tell on the backburner. Had this film been directed by a first timer, punctuated by fancy production values and rather pedestrian storytelling devoid of any thematic conscience, then ignoring it would have required little effort. But a lot of what Hong shows us in his (lamentably titled) latest work is quite effective. We're dealing with the real life story of an enigmatic murder perpetrated back in 1997, at an hamburger joint in Itaewon, the Korean mecca of cultural integration (considering the large presence of westerners, particularly Americans). A young student was repeatedly stabbed in the toilet by an unidentified man, for no other reason other than the fact that the killer was bored, and arcades wouldn't cut it. Two Korean-American suspects were apprehended with evidence pointing to the fact that one of the two was responsible for the killing, but with one accusing the other and a distinct lack of evidence, shadows of doubt surrounded the case, with the kind of conclusion you can imagine.

Save for the names of the victim and the suspects which were changed, everything else portrayed in Where the Truth Lies is closer to a documentary than a film, at least in intent. Director Hong and screenwriter-cum-wife Lee Maeng-Yoo spent four long years researching the murder, interviewing the family of the victim, prosecutors, detectives and many other people involved, trying to stress realism in every single aspect. Predictably, this is the film's biggest strength but also its fatal Achilles' heel. Hong has a long past of striking, very powerful cinema dealing with real events, straight from his debut. He wrote and produced 1988's 오! 꿈의 나라 (O! Dreamland) on the Gwangju Massacre, his feature debut 가슴에 돋는 칼로 슬픔을 자르고 (Cutting Sorrow with a Knife in the Chest) from 1992 focused on modern Korean history's own version of the slave ships, and his belated return to directing produced one of 2004's very best films, 선택 (The Road Taken), which told the story of political activist Kim Seon-Myeong and his record-breaking prison term. Looking at Hong's career, it's quite clear that he has a predilection for strong social commentary and stories reflecting real events, and one of his biggest strengths is essentially telling it like it is, never embellishing what he considers to be the truth with cinematic expedients. If anything, as the years go by his touch is gaining maturity, turning what once was anger drenched in black and white into shades of ambiguity - a look at Ahn Seok-Hwan's great performance in The Road Taken as the ruthless but very much humane prison ward is worth a thousand words. Sure enough, there is nothing driving the viewer away from the realism and objectivity of the proceedings here. The two major suspects never act like emotional pawns to elicit a response (and neither do they show any remorse, further increasing the ambiguity around this murder), and there are no Hollywood-inspired "Mr. Justice" moments, particularly considering how helpless the prosecutor in charge often ends up being.

This obsession with realism is very welcome, and in a way puts Where the Truth Lies in the same cinematic sphere as 거북이 달린다 (Running Turtle), genre cinema which banks on realism to overcome its apparent lack of excitement. But the biggest difference between this and Kim Yoon-Seok's latest tour-de-force performance lies exactly in the ingredients. If Running Turtle was helped by near perfect casting, only Jung Jin-Young really shines here, and whatever is wrong with the rest of the cast can be mostly pinpointed to lazy and/or misguided casting. Take the most evident mishap, casting Oh Gwang-Rok as the defense lawyer. Oh has an illustrious past in theater, and has made a career out of small but very distinctive roles in quality cinema - you know the guy Oh Dae-Soo in 올드보이 (Oldboy) holds by his tie, or the hilarious linguistic shenanigans of the Busan-by-Vladivostok weapons dealer in 달콤한 인생 (A Bittersweet Life)? That's the one. But if you take someone whose acting is so stagy for a role which requires subtlety, then you automatically end up throwing all the efforts made to stress realism out of the window (someone like Kim Gyu-Cheol or Ryu Seung-Ryong would be perfect for the role, for instance). And although Jang Geun-Seok does reasonably well as Pearson (one of the two suspects), Shin Seung-Hwan is brutally miscast as Alex Jung, punctuating every single scene with the kind of overstated motions which defeat the purpose of such a multi-layered character.

But dialogue is also to blame. Non-Korean speakers will most likely notice it already by the 羅生門 (Rashomon)-like dual reenactment of the murder, featuring English dialogue which feels lifted out of the lyrics of a gangsta-rap compilation (of the "English is only made of street slang and f-words" kind), but Korean dialogue is not much better, on most cases throwing exposition at the wall hoping it will offer some kind of narrative catharsis on its own. It's a shame, because the intent was obviously praiseworthy, but all the finer intricacies of the reenactment Hong so fervently worked for are in the end derailed by pretty basic issues. No matter how much realism you inject into your story, at the end of the day those are merely guidelines which solid directing and good acting will have to follow. Also, ironically for a Hong Gi-Seon film, Where the Truth Lies is mostly devoid of all the political and social issues his past works were filled with. Perhaps his maturation as a filmmaker moved him to focus away from Korean-US diplomatic relationships influencing this kind of case, and, admittedly, the US offered full cooperation during the real life investigation, so it probably was not even the right film for such themes to emerge. But if you consider what happened to the two suspects, a simple connection between the ethical limbo their particular status created and the unique reality of a place like Itaewon seems a little too meager a payoff for someone with so much talent for eye-opening social commentary.

And I guess that's the point. Were this a 2002 or 2003 film, Hong might have gotten a little more money to spend without necessarily compromising the film through more commercial intents, he might have spent it for a better cast, and maybe would have fomented bigger ambitions other than the idea of faithfully reenacting a very ambiguous case. But when a fragile glass like the 386 generation's cinematic psyche is standing in between two mighty rocks threatening its very existence, then the sole fact a film like this was made, and that it managed to break even is something we can be thankful for. Hell, thanks to film, the real life case was even reopened after years of oblivion. What else could you ask, if not for a better film....

RATING: 6

이태원 살인사건 (Where the Truth Lies)
Director: 홍기선 (Hong Gi-Seon)
Screenplay: 이맹유 (Lee Maeng-Yoo)
Produced by: Soopak Films
Int'l Sales: Showbox/Mediaplex
Running Time: 100 Minutes
Release: 9/9/2009
Box Office: #54. 534,941 Admissions (3.98 Billion Won)
CAST: 정진영 (Jung Jin-Young), 장근석 (Jang Geun-Seok), 신승환 (Shin Seung-Hwan), 고창석 (Go Chang-Seok), 오광록 (Oh Gwang-Rok), 송중기 (Song Joong-Gi), 김민경 (Kim Min-Kyung)