- Director : Park Hoon-Jung
- Actors : Kim Seon-ho, Kang Tae-ju, Kim Kang-woo, Go A-ra, Heo Joon Seok
- Language : Korean (DTS 5.1)
- Studio : Well Go Usa
- MPAA rating : NR (Not Rated)
- Country of Origin : USA
- Number of discs : 1
- Media Format : Subtitled, Widescreen
- Run time : 1 hour and 58 minutes
- Release date : January 16, 2024
One of my favorite things to do is to watch movies
I know nothing about. This is the purest way to enjoy a film, especially for
someone who watches as many as I do. Often even just the theatrical trailer is
enough to potentially spoil any narrative twists, so there is something
refreshing about allowing the filmmaker to reveal each plot point in their own
time. Unfortunately, even though The Childe has several secrets that it
slowly reveals throughout the run-time, I was easily able to guess what they
were, even without the assistance of promotional materials. While I was still
able to enjoy the spectacle contained within the plot, I wish the direction of
the narrative had been less obvious.
For those as
unfamiliar with the premise as I was prior to pressing play, The Childe
is a South Korean darkly comedic thriller about an impoverished young man
living in the Philippines who finds himself in a world of trouble after taking a
trip to meet his estranged father in South Korea. Marco (Kang Tae-Ju) is a
boxer struggling to make ends meet, resorting to gambling in hopes of making
enough money to pay for a much-needed operation for his mother. When a stranger
appears with an offer to travel to South Korea to meet his father and obtain
the money to save his mother, Marco quickly agrees despite his skepticism.
Upon arriving in
the country, Marco finds the situation is much more complicated than he first
imagined, with his two half siblings fighting over control of their father’s
lucrative company. But before Marco can even meet this unsavory pair, he is
kidnapped by a wild and enigmatic stranger who is listed only as Nobleman (Kim
Seon-ho) in the credits. This nobleman’s intentions are not initially clear and
Marco is thrown into a situation where he is uncertain who is helping him and
who would rather see him dead.
Much of the film’s
enjoyment comes from a series of chase sequences, with Marco escaping from
dangerous situations while remaining clueless about who he can trust. The
audience is also largely kept in the dark, though clever viewers will likely
pick up on clues long before the plot makes the twists explicitly clear. Fortunately,
even without being surprising, I found nearly all of The Childe an
enjoyable watch. The action is handled well, even though there was more of an
emphasis on humor than I was expecting from Park Hoon-jung, the director of I
Saw the Devil and New World. The humor also helps the film maintain
a certain irreverence, which makes it a little easier to accept the completely unbelievable
climactic showdown.
The Blu-ray release
for The Childe doesn’t come with any special features to speak of, but
the highly polished visuals are enhanced by the high-definition presentation.
Fans of South Korean thrillers and action films should add this to their list, though
there are plenty of options that should likely be placed higher on that list.
Entertainment Value:
/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: /10
Historical
Significance: /10
Special Features:
/10
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