The Suspect: Never Enough Heroes

Who's your hero in Won Shin-yeon's intricate thriller The Suspect? You actually have a few choices here. Is it Ji Dong-cheol (Gong Yoo), the former North Korean spy who's desperate to find his wife and child? Or Min Se-hoon (Park Hee-soon), his South Korean counterpart who sees Ji's capture as his redemption? Or even Choi Kyeong-hee (Yoo Da-in), the reporter who looks to both men as a way to resurrect her career? You could even pick Captain Jo (Jo Jae-yoon), the resourceful, gum-smacking military sidekick who's here for comic relief. It doesn't really matter. Because everyone has the same nemesis: Kim Seok-ho.

As the film's just-mentioned, amoral, mercenary, duplicitous NIS Director, Jo Sung-ha gets a lot of mileage out of a shit-eating grin. He flashes his teeth whether he's outsmarting a colleague or making a shady deal, whether he's pointing the gun at his enemy or having that same gun's barrel pressed up against his forehead. No doubt his mother told him he had a beautiful smile as a child but the more he grins the more you'll grimace. I mean that as a compliment. As bad guys go, he's deliciously detestable. The car chases in The Suspect are terrific, the camerawork frenetic, but that sickening smile really takes the cake.

The Client: Did He Do It?

Watching The Client is like listening to a certain type of well-told short story. The carefully constructed narrative builds, scene by scene, without ever needing you to re-evaluate your interpretations of "the facts" (like a mystery would) but instead judiciously doles out the details so that you're only able to decisively answer its central question at the very end — In this case: Did that cool cucumber Han Cheol-min (Jang Hyuk) murder his wife or not? The accused isn't particularly sympathetic. The dead woman (Yoo Da-in) has barely any screen time. So what we're left with is a battle of wills between the public prosecutor (Park Hee-son) and the defense attorney (Ha Jung-woo). Nothing wrong with that!

Their efforts to outwit each other is what generates most of the tension in Sohn Young-sung's effective courtroom drama. Will the client's team be able to retrieve the videotape shot in the hall and why won't the police turn this evidence over? Will the cranky five-and-dime owner (Yoo Soon-woong) confess what he saw the night of the crime? Does his mute son have anything pertinent to add? To its credit, The Client never feels like its withholding evidence or dragging things out despite running over two hours. Sometimes, it simply takes time to tell a good story. That's something which The Client most assuredly understands.

Side Note: This movie is a huge improvement over Sohn's earlier flick The Pit and The Pendulum. Credit in part must go to Sohn's co-screenwriter Lee Chun-hyeong.