[HanCinema's Film Review] "Revolver"
By William Schwartz | Published on
Soo-yeong (played by Jeon Do-yeon) is a former police officer who's only just getting out of prison after taking the fall for a drug scandal. Soo-yeong was a crooked cop, as was her boyfriend Seok-yong (played by Lee Jung-jae), and her taking the fall was a matter of mutual agreement. Through her corrupt police activities, Soo-yeong had finally bought a house, and this being her main apparent ambition in life, she was fine going to prison as long as she got to keep the house. Unfortunately, the other crooks didn't keep up their end of the deal.
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As motivations go, aspirational homeowner isn't a very good one, which probably goes a long way to explaining why "Revolver" had such a lukewarm performance at the box office. It only managed 249,363 admissions. This despite Jeon Do-yeon as the lead, Lee Jung-jae in a special appearance, and Ji Chang-wook as the villain Andy. Although as villains go, Andy is about as unimpressive as Soo-yeong is as a hero. He's a gangster who just isn't very good at his job, whose position is mainly due to family connections.
Ji Chang-wook's performance is at least interesting, sortof, in that he's more of a pathetic character than a buffoonish one. When Soo-yeong finally catches up to him the main reason he doesn't give her the money is because he doesn't have cash on hand in the form of liquid assets. In general "Revolver" is just the story of a business deal gone wrong, emphasis more on business deal than gone wrong.
It's very difficult to make any of this sound remotely interesting, and director Oh Seung-wook's uninspired direction certainly doesn't help. Well, that's not entirely fair. "The Shameless" worked to the extent it did mainly because its lead characters were genuinely repugnant people, and the flat, dismal nature of the backdrop helped to emphasize this. But the characters in "Revolver" aren't really unlikeable so much as they are unremarkable.
One late conversation in the film is surprisingly apropos along these lines- Soo-yeong is described as having been a popular woman at the office in the same way a person might describe her as being a popular person at high school. Soo-yeong isn't really distinctive so much as she is the bare minimum level of attractive and competent that people like involving her in their schemes. Soo-yeong having her corruption outed wasn't due to any incompetence on her part so much as sheer bad luck.
I think. I'm not especially confident I understood all of the plot points in "Revolver" mostly because the story is presented so placidly barely anything sounds relevant. There's a whole plot point about a buried body that Soo-yeong attempts to use to extort someone into paying her what she's owed and it feels absurd that the situation has even gotten to that point. Andy tries to shut her up on a budget, since otherwise it would just make more sense to pay her and it's just...bad decisions all around. Not even interesting decisions. Just bad decisions.
Written by William Schwartz
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"Revolver" is directed by Oh Seung-wook, and features Jeon Do-yeon, Ji Chang-wook, Lim Ji-yeon, Kim Jun-han, Kim Jong-soo, Jung Man-sik. Release date in Korea: 2024/08/07.
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Staff writer. Has been writing articles for HanCinema since 2012, having lived in South Korea from 2011 to 2021. He is currently located in the Southern Illinois. William Schwartz can be contacted via william@hancinema.net, and is open to requests for content in future articles.