Kick The Moon

Directed by: San Jin Kim

Starring: Sung Jae-Lee, Seung-won Cha, Hye-su Kim

Synopsis:

The city of Gyeoung Ju Gi. Dong Choi, High School rebel and legendary gang fighter and Young Joon-Park, quiet introverted scholar, meet ten years after their High School graduation. But now Choi is a High School Teacher and Park is a successful Gangster working for a Crime family sent back to Gyeoung Ju to strong arm the local hood into submission and take over for the Family. The two men strike up a strange companionship whilst musing on the different directions their lives have taken.

Meanwhile, New generation High School hardcase Ju Sup, one of Gi Dong’s shall we say less, academically focussed students, is desperate to become a gangster for Young Joon. After Ju Sup and his rank amateur thug posse get busted for brawling, the two men turn up at the local police station and meet Ju Run, Ju Sup’s hard working, responsible and also extremely attractive sister. Immediately both men fall for the girl and a rivalry over her affections leads to increasingly comic confrontations.



Review:

At first the plot does seem more than a bit too crowded. Essentially the story attempts to blend the teen comedy of Ju Sup and his buddies trying to become gangsters, with the more mature love triangle between Young, Ju Run and Gi Dong and also the police attempts to bring Young Joon down. It’s quite a task but it works well, the comedy complements the crime story and romantic competition balancing what could be a slightly melodramatic tale.

All the main actors put in good and sometimes brilliant performances. Jong-su Lee as Ju Sup is particularly engaging portraying a keen young man embarking on a career of crime with the dedication of any ambitious apprentice. Sung Jae-Lee and Seung-won Cha play off each other very well, and create an interesting buddy scenario with more than the usual quota of testosterone-fuelled tension.

As a recent convert to Korean cinema, I am still a little surprised by the formal, often prudish relationships between men and women in Korean film. It was quite unexpected to see two men embarking on courtship with a girl they are both very attracted to without even telling her in so many words that they were interested. Even a pg rated film from Hollywood or Europe would have made the intentions of the two men very obvious very quickly. It’s refreshing to see a film playing on such a level of subtlety in the performances.

The film flows, for the most part, quite well. It’s well directed by San Jin Kim and well scripted, the action is well captured and more than competently shot. However, as this really isn’t the main focus of the film, it’s worth mentioning that it isn’t that frequent.

Things do hot up in the final acts though as the situation between Young Joon and Gi Dong reaches a critical point.

Verdict:

In all it’s a sometimes funny, sometimes touching, boisterous tale. Enjoyable and easy to watch. My only moments of reservation were a couple of tunes in the soundtrack which sounded really peculiar. In the build up to an early brawl scene the score sounds like an early nineties video game. These moments are very rare and only slightly marr a well presented score. I was entertained and amused and think you may be too.

7 out of 10 (Sulaco)