Man of Reason, A (2023) Review

“A Man of Reason” Theatrical Poster

Director: Jung Woo-sung
Cast: Jung Woo-sung, Kim Nam-Gil, Kim Joon-Han, Park Sung-Woong, Park Yoo-Na, Lee Elijah, Ryu Jian, Kim Joo-Hun, Park Yong, Choi Soo-Im
Running Time: 98 min. 

By Paul Bramhall 

One of the most enduring actors in Korean cinema, since making his debut in 1994’s The Fox With Nine Tails Jung Woo-sung has rarely been absent from the screen in the close to 30 years that followed, and in 2023 he’d make his directorial debut (in addition to co-writing the script) with A Man of Reason. Following a similar approach to his close friend Lee Jung-jae’s directorial debut from the year prior, Hunt (in which Woo-sung co-starred), here he also casts himself as the lead, playing a former gangster who’s just been released from prison after serving a 10-year sentence.

For a directorial debut A Man of Reason gets off to a visually striking start, with the cinematography of the scenes where Woo-sung is released from prison bathed in orange hues, serving to make the Korean countryside almost look like a desert and give off a western influenced vibe. While the cinematography may be striking though, the story and characters soon start to feel overly familiar. At one point Woo-sung tells a friend “I’ll do my best to lead a good life”, a line that acts as a microcosm of the overall plot, as his world-weary ex-con faces an increasing number of obstacles standing in the way of his attempts to go straight.

For a start, as expected, his former boss wants to bring him back into the fold. Played by Park Sung-woong (The Closet, The Shameless), while he doesn’t take a particularly positive view to being rebuked by Woo-sung, far more dangerous is Sung-woong’s righthand man, played by Kim Jun-han (Mission: Cross, The Drug King). Now in the role that Woo-sung was in before he went away, Jun-han feels intimidated by his return, and decides to quietly have him taken care of by hiring a boyfriend and girlfriend assassin duo, played by Kim Nam-gil (Emergency Declaration, Memoir of a Murderer) and Park Yoo-na (The Labyrinth, Long D).

It’s a plot that feels more like it belongs to one of the many mid-budget gangster movies that Korea has been producing in recent years, with titles like The Wild and Paid in Blood, rather than it being the directorial debut of one of the countries biggest stars. However at the same time it could be said that Woo-sung is making a hark back to the kind of action movie that populated Korean cinema screens and video shelves in the 1990’s, a scene that he himself was a part of with roles in the likes of Born to Kill and City of the Rising Sun. Unfortunately whatever familiar genre staples the ex-con part of the plot leans into aren’t the only ones that A Man of Reason suffers from, with the same checklist of genre tropes carrying over into Woo-sung’s characters personal life.

We learn that when he was sent behind bars he left behind an ex who, unbeknownst to him, was pregnant with their child. Now his attempts to rekindle their relationship are complicated not only by their ballet dancing daughter who has no idea who her father is, but also by the fact his ex is suffering from blood cancer. Because if you’re going to go through a checklist of genre stereotypes in Korean cinema, having a character with a terminal illness has to be pretty much near the top. Despite being pursued by a pair of psychotic assassins, harassed by his old boss, finding out he has a daughter, and discovering the love of his life has cancer, Woo-sung gives a surprisingly subdued performance, mostly playing things poker faced regardless of what new revelation gets thrown in his direction.

This is offset by other members of the cast, particularly Kim Nam-gil, who gives a particularly cringe inducing hyper energetic performance as one of the assassins, not helped by the fact he seems to have been cast in a role he’s at least 20 years too old to be playing. By the time he starts barking like a dog down the phone to Jun-han in a scene which on paper was probably supposed to be funny, it’s hard to not experience a feeling of second-hand embarrassment. In fact there’s some odd attempts at humor throughout A Man of Reason that frequently miss the mark, likely down to the fact that Woo-sung establishes such a serious tone early on that their placement always feels off.

In one scene the camera frames Ji-han from behind to make it look like he’s pleasuring himself as his arm frantically gesticulates up and down, only revealing when it pans to face him that he’s actually cleaning the barrel of a shotgun. Had the scenes around it not been so serious then perhaps it may have worked, however its placement within the context of the narrative at that point only serve to make the scene come off as jarring. Thankfully A Man of Reason has a significant redeeming element though, and it’s the action, that Woo-sung made the smart move of bringing veteran stuntman and action director Heo Myoeng-haeng (director of The Roundup: Punishment and Badland Hunters) onboard to choreograph.

Whenever A Man of Reason decides to switch to action movie mode it successfully hits the spot, with Nam-gil’s assassin brandishing what’s essentially a semi-automatic nail gun (that basically makes it the equivalent of a machine gun, just swap bullets for nails), a weapon that contributes to a couple of thrilling chase scenes. Similarly when Woo-sung smashes his BMW into the lobby of his previous outfit’s headquarters, it’s a suitably chaotic scene as bodies are slammed all over the place, the fact that it’s all done practically and in-camera only making it more of a joy to watch. Plus thanks to Yudai Yamaguchi’s One Percenter 2023 offers up 2 fights in the same year that feature the creative usage of a flashlight, what are the chances?

While action thrillers in Korea have largely fallen out of favour in recent years, now usually relegated to low budget straight to streaming fare or anything starring Ma Dong-seok, there’s an undeniable pleasure at seeing Woo-sung unashamedly bring the kind of no-nonsense action scene back to the fore. It’s just a shame that everything surrounding the action feels so generic, which even with a punchy runtime of less than 100 minutes (a minor miracle for any Korean production) can sometimes make certain parts feel plodding.

Interestingly for its soundtrack A Man of Reason heavily relies on an instrumental version of one-hit wonder Gotye’s 2011 track Somebody That I Used to Know that plays over several scenes, a decision which personally I found took me out of the narrative whenever it was used. I would have preferred if Woo-sung had chosen to go with a full original score, but as it is whenever it played all I could envision was a guy covered in body paint blending into the wall behind him. Not really the image you want to be thinking about when you’re watching a Korean gangster movie.

Ultimately it feels like Woo-sung perhaps bit off more than he could chew by choosing to direct, co-write, and star for his first time sitting in the director’s chair. The fact that his character is the dullest thing about A Man of Reason is reflective of someone who likely had their mind more on what was happening behind the camera than what his performance was like in front of it. So while the screen is frequently filled with projectile nails, BMW’s causing plentiful collateral damage, and explosions, the lack of investment in Woo-sung’s character serves to strip much of the action of the impact it could have had if things were handled differently. As it is, when A Man of Reason entertains it does so with aplomb, but when it doesn’t, it simply feels flat.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5.5/10