The Phantom Detective (2016) (DVD) (Taiwan Version) DVD Region 3

Lee Je-hoon plays Hong Gil-dong, a private detective working for a shady agency run by President Hwang (Go Ara), tracking down evil and righting wrongs, often in violent fashion. Having no memory before his late childhood, Hong is dead-set on tracking down the man responsible for the death of his mother, the now-elderly Kim Byung-deok (Park Geun-hyung), though when he finally uncovers the location of his nemesis, he finds him already kidnapped, leaving behind his young granddaughters Dong-yi and Mal-soon (Roh Jeong-eui and Kim Ha-na). Refusing to give up, Hong continues his search, coming up against a sinister criminal organisation with links to his own past, including the evil Kang (Kim Sung-kyun).

The Phantom Detective is an odd one, Jo Sung-hee attempting to marry a variety of different elements, bringing the folk hero into the present day via a complicated and shifting plot that throws in neo noir, dark conspiracies and violence, along with slapstick comedy and long scenes of Hong Gil-dong looking after the two young kids. The film is certainly ambitious, and doesn't always quite hang together as a result, suffering from a generic first act and some variable pacing, being prone to randomness as it heads towards a strangely conventional climax. At the same time, while a bit baffling in places, the film does have an interesting atmosphere and feel, and Jo seems perfectly comfortable working with his clash of themes and motifs, keeping viewers on their toes through its frequent bizarreness.

It helps that the comedy works surprisingly well and is frequently very funny, and the film has a comic book style which suits its weirdness well, even when it's not clear whether Jo is trying to be serious or not. Though the mileage of the gags involving the cutesy kids will vary for different viewers, Jo gets some solid laughs from seeing Hong's cool, tough façade slipping as the mites leave him annoyed or baffled. Lee Je-hoon is good in the lead role, despite the fact that his character really isn’t very sympathetic, and if anything it's pleasing to see a protagonist who doesn't have the usual full-on redemptive arc. Kim Sung-kyun also gives value for money as the wicked Kang, turning in an amusingly over the top performance and, without wishing to give anything away, for such an apparently huge and insidious evil organisation, his mob seems to have a very unambitious and modest goal, it never being clear what they’re trying to achieve.

Visually the film is bit of a hybrid, combining shadowy noir and comic book colour, Jo seeming to have shot much of it against green screen – while it has to be said that some of the computer work isn’t too convincing, the at time artificial looking background do give the film a look of its own. As he's proved in the past, Jo is undoubtedly a talented director, though his handling of action here isn't terribly confident, some of the set pieces lacking in impact or the kind of hard edge which would have definitely given the film a boost.

These flaws aside, The Phantom Detective is enjoyable, and more importantly offers something at least a little different, making it a rarity in modern Korean commercial cinema. It's interesting to see an indie director like Jo Sung-hee making his way in the mainstream, and while he's not quite yet firing on all cylinders yet, he continues to prove himself a filmmaker worth watching.

by James Mudge - EasternKicks.com