Imagine spending your whole life hating someone. And not just hating them but chasing them. And not just chasing them for your entire adult life but in this prolonged, decades-spanning process, sacrificing everything that really matters: Your wife, your child, your career, your reputation, your eyesight, your health... Is it worth it? It certainly doesn't appear to be in Im Kwon-taek's Pursuit of Death (a.k.a. Jagko). As the former cop (Choi Yun-seok) hounds a Communist rebel (Kim Hee-ra) across decades, only to end up widowed with stomach cancer and a limp, this film's protagonist is neither particularly sympathetic nor heroic. He's suffering from an obsession that suggests some unresolved childhood trauma but what that might be I haven't a clue.
His adversary (Kim Hee-ra) isn't much better. A roaming womanizer who contracts VD and poisons his nemesis with mercury scraped from a mirror, this guy is downright mean despite his luck with the ladies — who frankly are the only other characters that are developed at all. Pursuit of Death's focus is narrow: We meet a taxicab driver, a former fellow officer, a check-in doctor at the rehab center where the leads meet and match wits but they're all largely expendable. The musical interlude in which most of the rehab center patients sing favorite songs from their past isn't informative so much as bizarre.
Director Im has made over a hundred films in a career that spans over half a century. Some of these movies — such as Hanji and Revivre — are quite good. Others — like this one — not so much.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment