I, The Executioner
Nine years after the box office triumph of the now very enjoyable ‘Veteran’ streaming on Netflix if you have not caught up Ryoo Seung-wan is now back with a sequel to his action-comedy that does not entirely take this world of cop chaos seriously like the first and yet is still as fun. Of course, ‘Veteran’ didn’t hesitate to address the rudimentary frameworks and systemic problems in society, but ‘I, The Executioner’, that’s right, the international title for ‘Veteran 2’ is quite subdued deliberately, directly addresses the age old narratives of cops beating you up ‘for your own good’ and asking questions about how this becomes the dominant narrative of society. There is a new aspect of vigilante justice, which is, in short, how internet mobs work nowadays and how the first of the major characters, Ryoo, didn’t build a simple warning about it but created an exciting film in which there are far more important themes than how far people can and should go in the name of restoring justice. Is murder ever justified?
A creative vigilante has been serving his form of justice to those criminals who have been missed by the justice system either never got to face any consequences at all, or who were simply not punished long enough.
(Some viewers of the show “Dexter” are likely to applaud this behavior.) The media, including a Youtuber who built the figure’s reputation, calls him “Haechi.” Everyone understands very well that there is nothing better than a villain getting a punishment he is owed. (In the Korean language, the name refers to a mythical beast that looks with a yawn at all wrongdoings of people.)
Seo Do-cheol (Hwang Jung-min) a charismatic lead of the story and a “Veteran” in solving the Haechi cases struggles with gyro issues of his son, whom he is unable to guide owing to the push and pull of an unknown threat that’s growing bolder. The already terrific team from “Veteran” is first shown in great style after their thrilling initial skirmish, which concludes with the inclusion of the tough Park Sun-woo (a role portrayed by Jung Hae in) into the roster of the team. A man nicknamed ‘UFC Policeman’ by the internet media because of a video where rough pugilistic guy Park successfully seized with his leg a knife armed guy. With a hard sigh and a frown, Seo starts to wonder why he is asked to protect criminals from actions that seem warranted. Park does not even hesitate as he sees anyone who bears even a remote resemblance to Haechi.
He is a representative of a new generation of crime fighters, one who appreciates the impact of the internet mob on the future of justice.
Around two-thirds the way through ‘I, The Executioner’ there is a hatchet twist which I would fridge at least a half the audience saw coming boosting predictability and often times in a thriller as conservative a structure as Ryoo’s film is tautly constructed. From the introductory spectacular fight sequence to an exceptionally staged climactic struggle on the rooftop in the rain one of my most adored for the year, Ryoo has this brutality in his fight choreography that adds a level of cartoonish hilarity to his work. In the wake of studiously choreographed CGI fight sequences, such clumsiness in the presentation of fight sequences is extraordinarily delightful. In the first sequence, a cop tries to kick a bad guy but misses the target due to overreaching and lunging with the kick. It’s not only that nuance which provides the humor here in the action but such unsophisticated nature of all the actions. People stagger, are knocked down and do all the clumsy things that one expects happens.
The whole idea of the last scenes of “I, The Executioner” is interesting yet the execution flounders since Ryoo has too many belly knives hoping to cut more than one belly which lateralizes some of the intriguing moral aspects central to his narrative. Nonetheless, the finale of “I, The Executioner” is arguably entertaining but at the same time it is disheartening to not only see some of the creativity that characterized the rooftop tussle, devoid of several rich ideas that animated the film. At this point, most viewers, however, will not give a ‘damn’ (and I really love the epilogue that more or less sums it all for Seo). They will be more concerned about the reason behind the long interval between the making of the films in this series and are hopeful that the next one would not take another nine years.
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