Visually, Lee Hae-young's Believer has all the components you'd expect from a thriller: the overhead shot of the car zooming down a lonely road, the stylish high heels stepping out of a car door, the close-up of someone doing a line of white powder, the helpless victim handcuffed to a chair... But despite the signature images, the endless backstabbing, the ever-complicating exposition, Believer never really manifests a world. I never sensed a camaraderie among the detectives, never bought the world-weariness of its lead cop (Cho Jin-woong), never cared about the two-faced naif (Ryu Jun-yeol), never felt the urgency of finding the mastermind druglord behind all the crimes.
In such a frame of mind, I watched Believer unfold with an indifference that made the subtitles somewhat irrelevant. Maybe the film would've been more cryptic if all I had to go on was the sight of shirtless men ranting, deaf cooks signing, suited men and women shooting, a poor dog bleeding. Certainly, the spectacle would make for a nice background when listening to an album by The Detroit Cobras or vintage Isaac Hayes. At times. But would I even look? Or would I close my eyes and feel the bass as a movie of my own making plays inside my tired head? No filmmaker myself, I'd probably be better served by checking out the original that inspired it: Johnny To's Drug War.
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