The Grand Heist: Frozen Assets

The 47 Ronin. The Dirty Dozen. The Hateful Eight. The Magnificent Seven. Apparently, those on a quest like to gather in relatively large numbers. I don't know what to call the rebellious collective found in Kim Joo-ho's feature debut The Grand Heist but there are eleven of them on board: a tunnel digger (Ko Chang-seok), an explosives expert (Sin Jeong-geun), an underwater swimmer (Min Hyo-rin), and a financial backer (Sung Dong-il), among others. Why have they banded together? Why, to steal roomfuls of ice, that's why. Ice, you ask, like diamonds? No. Ice like frozen water, stupid. Hundreds and hundreds of big blocks of it stored in secret rooms underground.

Set in the late 1700s, The Grand Heist is, oddly enough, a period piece first, a comedy second, and a heist flick last and least. There's plenty of planning and scads of scheming, but the importance of the crime (or even the value of ice, for that matter) never really registered for me. I got that the heist itself is an act of revenge, since the two leaders (Cha Tae-hyun, Oh Ji-ho) are motivated by the unjust imprisonment of the father of one, and the cruel mass killing of the co-workers of the other. I also got that the price of ice was jacked up by a shady businessman, disloyal to the king. But I didn't get how the theft of frozen goods (and with it the discovery of an obscene amount of gold) was going to make a big difference in how the government was run, despite a forged letter intended to influence the political future of the dynasty. Too much silliness abounds.

Translation note: The original Korean title for this movie is "Baramgwa Hamkke Sarajida" which means "Gone with the wind" so it's not hard to figure out why the American distributors decided to change it. That said, it might've been smarter to have assigned a title that was a little less genre-focused. My suggestion: "Frozen Assets."

A Hard Day: Not-So-Good Cop, Not-So-Bad Cop

At what point does a sleazy cop (Lee Sun-kyun) who's committed a hit-and-run murder become sympathetic to you? Is it after you've realized that the person he's accidentally killed is a serial killer? Or is it once you've learned that the phone caller (Jo Jin-woong) harassing him for committing said reprehensible crime has a more sordid history in — and outside — the police department that employs them both? Or is it, sentimentalist that you are, when the car-crashing cop's innocent family is threatened by the unknown witness to his crime? For me, that turning point never happened. And that's not a bad thing.

In a world that appears to embrace antiheroes because of their charm, their snappy one-liners, and their adherence to a dubious moral code, A Hard Day feels refreshing for having a protagonist who is, when you stop to think about it, pretty irredeemable. He's a self-absorbed, petty, disrespectful bully who you're happy to see get his just desserts even as you wish the same unfortunate comeuppance for his nemesis. When the two butt heads, you wish they'll both get concussions in the process. The closest writer-direct Kim Seong-hoon's highly entertaining thriller comes to sympathetic characters are the understatedly hunky detective (Jeong Man-sik) who's left a trail of receipts documenting his illegal use of government funds to hire prostitutes, and the squad chief (Sin Jeong-geun) who apparently will look the other way, regardless of the crime. The rest of the department is pretty forgettable.

In a nice Aristotelian touch, the entire action of A Hard Day is supposed to take place within one single day. (Hence, the title.) Although that feels highly unlikely, it does give the action a sense of speed that heightens the excitement. One assumes, the lead character will deal with the divorce papers he's served early on tomorrow.