카터

The expected action romp from South Korea is unfortunately a huge disappointment. We've noticed on Netflix lately that even quality directors are missing a hand there and that's definitely the case of Byung-gil Jung, who has two awesome flicks under his belt: Confession of Murder, an intelligent action crime drama that has become a cult hit, The Villainess, a groundbreaking actioner with POV camera. With Carter the director wanted to push the level a bit higher, unfortunately he missed the mark and the film oozes less is sometimes more. At the same time, the film has a very appealing premise, perfect for the action genre, with the main character waking up with memory loss, a voice in his head, and a clearly defined mission to take down a bunch of enemies; simple, straightforward, effective, more than enough. However, incorporating a zombie into it was a misstep, socks and sandals – tasteless, inappropriate, wrong. Furthermore, the director had a clear vision and wanted to make a film based in one take, something that had already been made elsewhere (Hardcore Henry), but not yet in Korea, and it has to be said that the time is not right – there is simply a lack of resources and quality CGI to make it work. Korea is strongest in realism, authenticity, detail, visuals and violence, which are lacking here. The camera hurts your eyes, it's crazy jittery, there are slow motions and fast motions, very bad CGI inserts like from old video games, and it's artificial, annoying, and a hell of a long way from reality. The film falls down on the director's vision. If it had been conceived in a more classical style without trying to please Hollywood, we could be talking about the action movie of the year, but as it is, most people will ignore it. To be fair, the opening fight in the spa, which has a decent body-count, lasted a long time and was decently bloody (the CGI blood was visibly artificial though and I can tolerate that from China, not from Korea). The rest of the action scenes are more in the Fast and Furious style, with in interesting stunts and car chases with the occasional interesting moment, but then they are ruined by the CGI or the camera. Although I wasn't bored and the runtime is very excessive for such a film, I'll only pull it up to 3 stars because of my love for Korean filmmaking and a few interesting moments. Disappointing. Story 3/5. Action 3/5, Humor 0/5, Violence 3/5, Fun 3/5 Music 3/5, Visuals 2/5, Atmosphere 2/5, Suspense 2/5, Emotion 1/5, Actors 2/5. 5/10. (07.08.2022)