Runtime: 123 minutes
Directed by: Hae-Young Lee
Starring: Jin-Woong Jo,
Seung-Won Cha, Jun-Yeol Ryu, Sung-Ryung Kim, Ju-Hyuk Kim
From: Several South Korean
companies
Yes, there was a remake of the 2012 Johnnie To film Drug War, which I have reviewed before and revisited on Monday night. That is still great... this, not as much:
Please don't confuse this with some documentary from this year w/ the same name that involves the lead singer of the ATROCIOUS band Imagine Dragons. Rather, this is the South Korean remake of the 2012 Johnnie To movie Drug War. I became pretty excited when I heard about this film earlier in the year; somewhat middling reviews did give me pause but a few days ago I decided to take the plunge, and while this is good there is the unfortunate issue of (at least for me) Drug War being great.
The general idea is the same, some scenes are mirrored and like in DW there is a pair of mute brothers who manufacture meth. But otherwise this movie does its own thing as a person low on the totem pole in a drug ring gets busted and due to his friendships he can assist the police in trying to nab the big cogs in the machine, but can you trust a criminal like that? If you haven't seen DW and only watch this, you'll likely thing it was a good motion picture. Even being familiar with Drug War, I can say that this is good; the problem is that Drug War is better all around.
The To film I rate higher at such aspects as storytelling, plot, characters, music, the action... yeah, especially the action. What is shown here is entertaining and all but it doesn't compare to DW; the same goes for the scenes filled with tension/suspense & the ending here just doesn't compare to the spectacular way Drug War concludes. Between the two you know which one I prefer.
I may sound overly harsh as there are many remakes of great films you could never classify as being “good”. But hearing that a wild scene like South Korean cinema would be making their own version of a great film meant that my expectations were sky high and I wish this could have been incredible as I imagine it could have been. Alas... I was not a believer in Believer, at least compared to the OG film from To.
Please don't confuse this with some documentary from this year w/ the same name that involves the lead singer of the ATROCIOUS band Imagine Dragons. Rather, this is the South Korean remake of the 2012 Johnnie To movie Drug War. I became pretty excited when I heard about this film earlier in the year; somewhat middling reviews did give me pause but a few days ago I decided to take the plunge, and while this is good there is the unfortunate issue of (at least for me) Drug War being great.
The general idea is the same, some scenes are mirrored and like in DW there is a pair of mute brothers who manufacture meth. But otherwise this movie does its own thing as a person low on the totem pole in a drug ring gets busted and due to his friendships he can assist the police in trying to nab the big cogs in the machine, but can you trust a criminal like that? If you haven't seen DW and only watch this, you'll likely thing it was a good motion picture. Even being familiar with Drug War, I can say that this is good; the problem is that Drug War is better all around.
The To film I rate higher at such aspects as storytelling, plot, characters, music, the action... yeah, especially the action. What is shown here is entertaining and all but it doesn't compare to DW; the same goes for the scenes filled with tension/suspense & the ending here just doesn't compare to the spectacular way Drug War concludes. Between the two you know which one I prefer.
I may sound overly harsh as there are many remakes of great films you could never classify as being “good”. But hearing that a wild scene like South Korean cinema would be making their own version of a great film meant that my expectations were sky high and I wish this could have been incredible as I imagine it could have been. Alas... I was not a believer in Believer, at least compared to the OG film from To.
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