Handsome Guys (2024) Review

“Handsome Guys” Theatrical Poster

Director: Nam Dong-hyub
Cast: Lee Sung-min, Lee Hee-jun, Park Ji-hwan, Lee Kyu-hyung, Gong Seung-yeon, Woo Hyeon
Running Time: 100 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

The comedy genre has always been one which feels reluctant to be tackled head on in Korea, with even productions that bill themselves as comedies often making sharp U-turns into melodrama for their final reels. The likes of 2002’s Sex is Zero and 2017’s I Can Speak are classic examples of the uniquely Korean tendency to go for laughs and lightness in the first two thirds, then descend into heavy and heart-wrenching finales, a tonal whiplash that local audiences seem to except as the norm. To a degree it almost feels as if to helm an out and out comedy is a mark of shame for a filmmaker, hence the need to incorporate dramatic elements in an attempt to create a serious undertone, even if it means the audience exit the cinema shedding tears of sadness rather than laughter.

Like everything though, there are exceptions to the rule. Director Jang Gyu-sung’s Fun Movie from 2002 offered up a riotous parody of many popular movies of the era, while a director like Sin Jeong-won has stuck steadfastly to the comedy genre throughout his career, with titles like 2012’s Ghost Sweepers and 2020’s The Night of the Undead. While the rest of the 2020’s have largely been devoid of comedic outings on the Korean peninsula, thankfully in 2024 debut director and writer Nam Dong-hyub is out to change things with the release of Handsome Guys, which puts satire, slapstick, and an amusing dose of horror at the forefront.

Reuniting Lee Sung-min (The Beast, The Witness) and Lee Hee-jun (Miss Baek, Misbehavior) after their respective roles as president and chief of security in 2020’s The Man Standing Next, here their roles are a world away from the sombre tones of the earlier production. In Handsome Guys they play a pair of rugged and slightly eccentric carpenters who are also best friends, having spent the last 10 years saving for a house in the countryside to live a more “rustic” lifestyle. Despite their rough around the edge’s appearance, both are convinced of their good looks, with Sung-min describing himself as “tough handsome”, while Hee-jun fits more into the “sexy handsome” mould. Sadly the world doesn’t perceive them the same way, with even the 2 local cops (played by Park Ji-hwan – Unstoppable, Spiritwalker – and Lee Kyu-hyung – Seoul Vibe, Innocent Witness) suspecting that they must be up to no good based purely on their looks.

The cops end up being the least of anyone’s worries though, when it turns out a group of teenagers have rented a nearby mansion for a party. After accidentally killing a goat while driving, little do the group know that their roadkill has reawakened a goat demon previously banished by a foreign missionary more than 60 years ago, and who used to live in the property Sung-min and Hee-jun have moved into. The issue of a demonic evil is confounded further by one of the teenagers, played by Gong Seung-yeon (Re-BORN, Aloners), overhearing that she was only invited because one of the guys wants to sleep with her. Leaving the group to wander alone and subsequently almost drowning, Sung-min and Hee-jun end up rescuing her, leading the others to believe she’s been kidnapped.

So the stage is set, while Sung-min and Hee-jun begin to enthusiastically renovate their dilapidated home, they remain blissfully unaware that a group of teenagers are out to get them, while a demonic spirit capable of destroying the world has reawakened in their basement. It’s a setup primed for comedic gold, and Dong-hyub fully leans into the absurdity of the situation, complimented by a cast who have no qualms of hamming up their usual more serious personas. Despite it being his first time to helm a production solo, Dong-hyub comes with a background of being an assistant director, a role he’s credited as in the likes of 2010’s Bestseller (in which he also had a small acting part) and 2018’s High Society, and it’s clear the experience has served him well.

One of the most interesting elements of Handsome Guys is that it’s actually a remake of the 2010 Canadian movie Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. That makes it the 2^nd Canadian movie remake that Lee Sung-min has starred in, having also played the lead in 2022’s Remember, which was a remake of the 2015 production of the same name. Ironically it’s not so common for Korea to remake English language productions, with many of its remakes tending to come from either Asia (Believer, Heart Blackened) or Europe (Intimate Strangers, The Target), however Dong-hyub has successfully placed his own stamp on the source material.

Obviously a fan of the classic American horror staples, there are recognizable homages thrown in to the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Evil Dead, while at the same time many of the comedic setups feel reminiscent of something David Zucker would come up with. In a film industry that tends to aim for as much production polish as possible, there’s an undeniable joy in seeing a demonic undead goat attacking one of the teenagers, the clunkiness of the model only adding to the comedic charm of the scene. On the performance side I’ve always felt like as an actor Park Ji-hwan’s comedic talents are often underutilized (although his role in The Roundup was pitch perfect), so to see them fully taken advantage of here is one of the highlights, a particular scene in which he tries to apprehend Sung-min and Hee-jun being a masterclass in perfectly timed slapstick.

Similarly for Lee Sung-min, whose turn here as a comedy lead feels like a revelation, eschewing the more straight-faced kind of roles audiences are used to seeing him in. While as an actor he has done comedy before, notably with 2020’s Mr. Zoo: The Missing VIP and 2016’s The Sheriff in Town, his characters in those productions still offered up comedic variations on roles he’s familiar with playing. In Handsome Guys the audience gets to see him play a very different type of character, and in a filmography dominated by more serious roles, to see him running around with a chainsaw while being chased by a horde of bees is just as funny as it sounds.

For those unfamiliar with the source material, in many ways the structure of Handsome Guys feels like an updated version of Kim Ji-woon’s 1998 classic The Quiet Family, with the same setup of the clueless protagonists moving to the countryside, only to have everyone around them start inadvertently dying. Much like Ji-woon’s movie would have felt like in the late 90’s, in a film industry that’s been increasingly cranking out by the numbers genre fare and instantly forgettable straight to streaming filler, it’s a rare opportunity to see Korea return to the kind of genre blending it did so well in the 2000’s. Dong-hyub mixes in comedy, horror, thriller, supernatural, and even elements of romance into the mix, but they all compliment each other perfectly, and most importantly the goal of making the audience laugh is always at the forefront.

As a director and writer Handsome Guys makes for an impressive calling card for Nam Dong-hyub, with a love of horror cleverly lensed through the filter of the comedy genre, resulting in a movie that feels like a welcome breath of fresh air. I admit I spent much of the punchy 100-minute runtime in fits of laughter, something even a director like Kim Ji-woon’s return to his comedic roots with 2023’s Cobweb failed to achieve. While Korea isn’t known for its comedic output, hopefully this will be the production that can buck the trend, and prove that making people laugh is just as much of an accomplishment as leaving them feeling like they’ve been punched in the gut.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 8.5/10