Friend

Title: Friend
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Crime, Drama
Starring: Oh-Seong Yu, Dong-Kun Jang, Tae-hwa Seo, Un-taek Jeong
Director: Kyung-Taek Kwak
Language: Korean

“In a race between Cho Oh-ryun (Korean gold-medalist swimmer) and a sea turtle, who would win?”

From an unknown Korean director comes a film I must admit, did not have the greatest hopes for, but proved to be a superb account of the lives of four close friends. Whilst gently meandering along we explore each of the four, learning of their tendencies and despite coming from different backgrounds they somehow find their lives twined together, through the good times and the bad they are there for one another, and this theme of this strong friendship comes through prominently in a realistic and heart-felt manner.

Chronicling the journey of their lives from children all the way to adulthood, their friendship is soon stressed to breaking point when Sang-taek (Seo), the intellectual and kind-hearted realist who is always there for those who need him, and Jeong-Ho (Jeong), the joker of the group leave for university. It is when they return three years later to re-unite that they discover Lee Jeong-suk (Yu), the talented fighter and son of a gangster, has become addicted to drugs, and Lee Han Dong-Su (Jang) in prison, serving time to prove his loyalty to the gangsters they have fallen in with. It isn’t long before the two friends become bitter rivals working for two different factions, trying to maintain a friendship through the deceit and hostilities that surround them.

The strength of acting displayed here is quite simply astounding, not least from the two bitter gangster rivals, their uneasy friendship still presenting a degree of amicability between them as their lives slowly take them in different directions; Oh-Seong Yu superbly displaying the complex emotion, the reluctance to get caught up in the underworld as his parents were yet drawn to the only life he knows, trying to convince himself he isn’t a bad person, only ever truly convincing the naïve character played by Un-Taek Jeong. This acts as a startling contrast to the slow changes observed in Dong-Kun Jang’s character, transitioning from the second fiddle fighter to a man of power in his own right, slowly losing his grip on right and wrong, forgetting who his real friends are until it is too late.

And throughout all of this comes Tae-Hwa Seo’s character, the ever present advisor trying to keep together their dysfunctional family, greatly assisted by Yu’s character who values friendship more greatly than the others who all too often take their bond for granted. What makes these characters work so well is how easy it is to observe traits of yourself reflected in them, observing how quickly things can change and what they are willing to do for one another.

The plot began relatively slowly, gradually elevating in tension it at no point feels excessive or uninteresting, the bonds between the strong enough to provide a source of interest in their own right, though it is towards the latter end of the film that things begin to fall apart, being relatively confusing to understand and requires careful attention to the words spoken. The soundtrack was used sparingly to great effect where it was required, even transforming a scene that could otherwise be rather unemotional into something more. This is by no means a spectacular film, but is another worthwhile film in this vein that most certainly shows promise from a young director who may have more in store for us in the future.