Another Public Enemy (Korea/Tartan)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: B-     Extras: C+     Film: C+

 

 

Most of the Asian crime dramas we have seen have really been action films with weak crime plotlines, but Woo-Suk Kang’s Another Public Enemy (2005) is one of those films that does the opposite and though we see this rarely.  Unfortunately, it becomes too talky and too much like a British police procedural TV series.  Kang (Kyung-Gu Soul) is an investigator looking into a series of strange violent incidents.

 

As he digs deeper, there is the usual conspiracy and it (surprise) leads to an old enemy of his from his past, because the genre in recent years has been bankrupt of new ideas.  As a result, the “personal past point” surfaces and we are supposed to be impressed.  When this kind of thing was done before, there was a more solid, well-worked script.  Today, it is a sadly tired, predictable formula and for those goofs who are mentally lazy to begin with crying, “what did you expect” and the like, you’re showing your ignorance.  For the rest of us, better films in the genre are out there and especially at a run-on 143 minutes, you can do better.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image looks like it was shot on film in Super 35, with weak definition and Video Black, but is clean and color consistent enough otherwise.  The sound is here in 5.1 Dolby and 5.1 DTS, plus Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, but even the DTS is only so good.  All are Korean language tracks and this is more dialogue-based than expected.  Extras include trailers for this and a few other Tartan releases, two featurettes and a cast/crew audio commentary.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo