A sweet little girl named Myung-hee (Kang Cho-hee) is raped and murdered then left in a ditch alongside a country road one awful, rainy night. Whodunit? The two leading suspects are Dong-sik (Jeong Se-in), the young ruffian who had a crush on Myung-hee, and Seung-Ho (Lee Da-wit), his best friend, who also had a thing for the girl. We know it's one of the two because the only people who'd do this would have to be adolescent boys who harbored warm feelings for her. So goes the logic of Kim Dae-hyun's nonsensical thriller Bloody Innocent. Which makes the prosecution and life-imprisonment of Dong-sik's mentally ill brother Kyung-sik even more exasperating. Clearly the local police have a faulty logic of their own, one which equates underdeveloped intelligence with amorality.
Flash forward a few times and the finger-pointing continues: Dong-sik (now played by Sin Seong-rok) must've done it because he's a member of the lower classes and it's just the kind of heinous act a poor kid would do! He's trash from start to finish! No. Actually Seung-ho (now played by Kim Da-hyeon) is the rapist-killer. Rich people are plain evil. Their good deeds and success inevitably cover up a past spotted by inhumane jealousies! Money is the ultimate corruptor! More deaths pile up: the young prostitute who happens to be Dong-ski's sister; the boyfriend-john who beats the hell out of her for no reason at all; a cyanide-ingesting Kyung-sik who mysteriously poisons himself with tainted milk despite being lactose-intolerant. There's also a group of feminist kidnappers and an ominous woman who sells umbrella, who make quick appearances and just as fast, disappear.
When the one who actually did it confesses his guilt to the one who did not, the latter man, like us, is somewhat baffled as to WHY. What was the point? Is it really so bad not to win the girl when you're a kid? And do you spend the rest of your life holding a grudge for the one that got away? On the flip side, are you sad when someone who's been murdering people you care about gets murdered himself? I, for one, was relieved when the anonymous cop's gun was shot and took out the knife-wielding nut. I'd like to think the "bloody innocent" protagonist breathed a sigh of relief, too.
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I was disappointed with girls or women not knowing how to protect themselves despite the violence in their that community. I hate that the young cop when young was such a wimp not making sure she would be safe and let her go by herself home when he could have protected her and despite rumors of the neighborhood who cares? He acted childish for a teenager and he should blame himself for not trying to protect his love interest.
ReplyDeleteAll good points! Thanks for sharing, Angela.
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