Neo-noir film wasn't just a thing in the U.S.A. during the 1970s. South Korea had its own thing going on too if Lee Man-hui's The Midnight Sun is any indication, a rock-solid, dirty-noble-cop movie in which our antihero is a cranky commander with a short temper, a detached attitude, and some sort of medical condition that requires him to drink an unappetizing brown liquid out of a warmed-up baby bottle. The primary crimes that he's currently dealing with are a spate of motorcycle robberies involving a young woman who rarely isn't wearing a red mini-dress, and a grieving, heartbroken kidnapper who has targeted the cop's troublemaking son as his mark. Will the boss-cop nab the thieving lovers and prevent his own child's murder before he wins that upcoming departmental award? The suspense is pretty thick in The Midnight Sun so you're never totally sure until the dual finale arrives and it's so full of outlandish twists and turns that you'd likely dub this film improbable if it weren't so damned enjoyably crazy.
Indeed you'll cut this flick a lot of slack because it's so well paced and populated by so many entertaining secondary characters like a romantic police officer who's courting his supervisor's standoffish, tour-guide sister-in-law; a self-supporting orphan (with a pet squirrel) who's searching for his one living sibling; and a tormented ex-con who can't keep his sunglasses on straight or disguise his voice for the life of him. Another charm? The flick also has that strange Kodachrome palette that defined a generation of film and feels like a nostalgic Instagram filter. Of such tints are dreams made.
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