The Spy: Short on Dialogue

"I'm going to punish you on behalf of North Korea." Thus begins The Spy, a dramatic short by writer-director-editor Lee Woo-suk. After that it's pretty quiet for awhile as our young assassin (Kim Mu-yeol) slips into the Milky Way Coffee Shop, sneaks a loose cigarette from its dirty bathroom then rifles through some salacious calling calls before ringing up a massage parlor that's a front for some top secret operations. Hey, action happens fast when you're making a film that clocks in under fifteen minutes! And the hero has his own constraints to deal with too. With the equivalent of a mere thirty-seven dollars in his billfold wallet, he's supposed to acquire an iPod, some Kinder chocolates, and a pair of castanets. Oh, a life in espionage is strange, strange, strange.

Where do you go to regroup after the stress of killing someone? Well, you can always hop in a taxi and listen to a very chatty cab driver (Lee Dong-yong) who may or may not take you where you need to go. What's to say? Dialogue is scant in The Spy. Perhaps the budget didn't permit a bona fide screenwriter. Perhaps every scene had one take and the cast wore their own clothes. I guess for busy actors such as Kim and Lee, there are worse ways to spend a weekend, casually dressed. Ultimately, The Spy recalls those 48-hour-film festivals that were once all the rage stateside. Perhaps it just took a few years for this fad to catch on in South Korea. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.