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Seok (Ahn Sung-kee) is released from prison after 49 years.
In a seemingly unrelated event, Yang Dal-su (Lee Ki-yeong) is found
murdered, & since he was a drug addict - despite his 70 years of age -, at
first a drug related crime is suspected ... but all the clues gathered lead
detectives Oh (Lee Jung-jae) & Yuh to the rural island of Geoje, where the 2 cops
find a childhood photograph of Yang Dal-su, together with his pals from school
Seok & Han Dong-ju (Jeong Jun-ho), & a diary ...
Before they can make any use of these findings though, Yuh is shot dead (his
own fault though since he just told Oh that his daughter is having
her 13th birthday - a big no-no for cops in movies), & the assailant, after Oh shoots him, is identified as
a professional killer.
Oh though carres little about this evidence - or his partner's death for
that manner - & starts reading the diary, which is that of Sohn Ji-hye (Lee
Mi-yeon), Seok's girlfriend from 50 years ago.
As she, back then, was a communist, she & Seok went into hiding beneath
her old school, where several other communists, lead by borderline psychotic
Han Dong-ju have also been hiding. Han Dong-ju does enjoy his power, &
doesn't even refrain from killing his comrades when they misbehave, just to
cement his position ...
Somewhere arond here the diary stops, but detective Oh has little trouble
finding the protagonists Seok & Ji-hye to tell him the rest of the story
...only Han Dong-ju has died decades ago & thus won't be able to help out.
Back in the 50's, Ji-hye, Seok & the communists are found out by a group
of soldiers, led by merciless Yang Dal-su (yep, the dead man from the beginning
of the movie, & the schoolmate of both Seok & Han Dong-ju), who burns
down the schoolhouse to smoke them out. Only Ji-hye, Seok & Han Dong-ju
manage to escape somehow, but when Han Dong-ju wants to die the martyr's death,
Seok forces him to bring Ji-hye to safety instead while he distracts the
soldiers ... however, eventually they all land in prison - where Ji-hye buys
her & Seok's freedom by becoming Yang Dal-su's wife - & tries to poison
herself to escape her life in misery, but the poison only blinds her ... which
proves to be enough for Yang Dal-su to discard her anyway ...
The police soon arrests Seok as the only possible suspect, only Oh (again)
has another idea & finds out Japanese businessman & big-tiem drugdealer
Shintaro is indeed Han Dong-ju, who only faked his own death to escape
prosecution & is now dong well in Japan ... so well, that Yang Dal-su, by
then down on his luck, started to bribe him.
In Japan, Oh confronts Shintaro/Han Dong-ju with his evidence, & at
first Han Dong-ju tries to bribe him, then it all ends in a shoot-out, until
Han Dong-ju, seeing the hopelessness of his situation, shoots himself ... but
not before claiming he did not shoot Yang Dal-su ...
& indeed, on the airplane back to Korea, Oh reads in the newspaper that
Seok did already confess to the crime ... but to noone's surprise it wasn't him
either but Sohn Ji-hye, who has only pretended to be blind all those years
&, upon finding out that Seok - despite Yang Dal-su telling her otherwise -
has indeed spent his whole life in prison, & now she wanted revenge on Yang
Dal-su ... & on all the others who wronged her & cheated her out of her
one true love.
It all ends in another of these shoot-outs, & in the end, Ji-hye dies in
Seok's arms ...
On a superficial level, this movie is beautifully filmed, & an
interesting blend of genres, from cop- & serial-killer-thriller to
historical drama & love story, digging a little deeper though, little of
this fascination remains, as it turns out to be just a deliberate mix of
clichés of all of these genres (the worst cliché maybe being the cop telling
his partner his daughter is turning 13 & being shot just 5 minutes later -
& it isn't even an American film) with at best 2-dimensional characters
(the worst here is detective Oh, who's supposed to be something like a loose
cannon, but hardly shows any outbursts of violence even a mildmannered
accountant would be ashamed of), stumbling through an array of pretty pictures
& trying to solve a mystery the average audience has solved halfway through
the movie.
Admittedly though, the movie is not quite as bad as this may sound, & it
has
its moments, including some fine action scenes ... only, it's not a good film,
either.
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find Last Witness at adultvideouniverse.com
