“Heart Blackened” Korean Theatrical Poster
Director: Jeong Ji-woo
Cast: Choi Min-Sik, Park Shin-Hye, Ryoo Joon-Yeol, Lee Honey, Park Hae-Joon, Lee Soo-Kyung
Running Time: 125 min.
By Paul Bramhall
The current trend of Asian movies being remade within the region shows no signs of slowing down, with most recently China remaking the Korean movie A Hard Day into Peace Breaker, and Korea returning the favour by remaking Drug War into Believer. In Believer, Korean actor Choi Jin-woong stepped into the role that Sun Hong-Lei played in the Johnnie To original, and Heart Blackened finds another of Hong-Lei’s leading turns receive a Korean makeover. This time it’s his other 2013 production, Silent Witness, and filling his shoes is another Choi, but this time it’s one of the most respected names in Korean cinema, in the form of Choi Min-sik.
Much like Fei Xing both directed and wrote the original, the remake goes for the same approach, with Jeong Ji-woo also sitting in the director’s chair and penning the screenplay. Ji-woo and Min-sik have worked together before, when Min-sik headlined his debut Happy End back in 1999, so to see them collaborating again after almost 20 years is a welcome sight. As a leading man, Min-sik is one of those actors seemingly incapable of putting in a bad performance, even if recently the material he’s been working with doesn’t necessarily match his own talents (The Mayor and The Tiger: An Old Hunter’s Tale both spring to mind).
I confess at this point that I haven’t seen Silent Witness, so in terms of passing judgement based on how it compares to the original, this won’t be the review to do it. With that being said, I’m certainly curious to check out the source material in the near future. The plot concerns the difficult relationship that exists between Min-sik’s wealthy businessman, his new partner who’s a famous singer (Lee Honey, Tazza: The Hidden Card), and his daughter (Lee Soo-kyung, Coin Locker Girl). After a leaked sex tape from one of Honey’s previous relationships goes viral, she gets into an alcohol fuelled argument with Soo-kyung, and the following morning is found dead in a parking lot. With his daughter insisting she can’t remember anything of what happened, Min-sik digs deep to hire a lawyer (Park Shin-hye, My Annoying Brother) capable of clearing her name, and get to the bottom of what took place on the fateful night.
Matters get messy when it’s revealed one of Honey’s diehard fans (Ryu Jun-yeol, A Taxi Driver) was able to download CCTV footage from the parking lot before it got destroyed, capturing the moment of her death, resulting in an increasingly frantic Min-sik attempting to get his hands on the files before anyone else. In many ways I found the story of Heart Blackened to remind me of Bong Joon-ho’s murder mystery Mother. Both tales concern a parent attempting to clear their child’s name of a murder they’re the main suspect of committing, without knowing the full truth of if they are indeed innocent or not. However while the events in Mother unravelled against the backdrop of a rural Korean town, Heart Blackened sets itself against the backdrop of the affluent Gangnam neighbourhood, its skyscrapers and office suites captured in cool blue and grey tones thanks to being filmed in winter.
Despite the strong potential for intrigue and mystery in its storyline though, Heart Blackened feels remarkably one dimensional. Its biggest weakness comes in the decision to have the limelight somewhat shared by Shin-hye, as the lawyer Min-sik hires, and the rival prosecutor (Park Hae-joon, Believer). Shin-hye fails to convince as an authoritative lawyer, and the role would likely have benefitted from casting someone a little older. What begins to feel like a terminal number of shots watching people looking at computer screens gives a lethargic feel to the pacing, and when we’re already an hour in its randomly revealed that Shin-hye and Hae-joon used to be in a relationship. While this most likely seemed like a sub-plot that added extra layers of characterisation on paper, onscreen it comes across as an unnecessary detail that detracts from the actual story at hand.
Min-sik also finds himself working with a script that does little to endear his character to the audience. He doesn’t even bother grieving over the fact that the woman he was going to marry was discovered dead, instead only showing interest in getting to the bottom of what happened. With a seeming unlimited bank roll, he’s soon attempting to bribe Hae-joon into dropping the case against his daughter, and hiring heavies to intimidate Jun-yeol into handing over the footage. He even jets off to Thailand on a business trip in the middle of the case (which has about 20 seconds of screen time dedicated to it), and insists on more than one occasion that “money is everything.” Indeed the more proceedings progress, the more it feels like his real concern is saving his own face as someone in a position of power, rather than caring about if his daughter was involved in the death or not.
The courtroom scenes fail to add anything that we haven’t already seen countless times before. Twists and reveals bubble to the surface, however they all feel like they’re there just to get us to the big one, which we assume will be the actual footage of Honey’s death. Unsurprisingly, this is exactly how things play out, and while it would certainly be a spoiler to go into any details of what the footage shows, needless to say it attempts to provide a moment of truth that will leave the audience in shock. What did turn out to be a surprise though, was that after laying the truth on the table and finally having justice prevail, I realised the movie was only 90 minutes into its 2 hour runtime. Where we really going to have an extended epilogue drag on for another half an hour?
As it happens, the answer was thankfully no, in that it certainly wasn’t an extended epilogue. Rarely has a movie I’ve resigned myself to writing off been able redeem itself so late in the game, but Heart Blackened did just that. Much like the final verdict in the courtroom, to go into any kind of details would be a spoiler, but needless to say Ji-woo does a daring bait and switch which he just about pulls off. With the guilty party now serving time behind bars, the last quarter of Heart Blackened allows the audience an insight into exactly what Min-sik got up to on that business trip to Thailand, showing just how deep his pockets really are. It’s a bold move that likely not everyone will buy into, but for myself at least, the final scenes give a new context to everything that’s gone before, which will no doubt be a rewarding experience on a re-watch.
As redemptive as the finale is, there can be no doubting some of the criticisms still hold true. The relationship between Shin-hye and Hae-joon remains a needless add on, and the runtime could have done with a bit less of spending time with them, and more time with Soo-kyung. Despite playing the accused daughter, she often feels more like a peripheral character rather than one who is central to the plot. As the morally ambiguous lead though, Min-sik once again puts in another outstanding performance, one which anchors the movie in a way which can’t fully be appreciated until the end credits are rolling.
With Heart Blackened Ji-woo has crafted a tale which operates in increasingly murky shades of grey, one which feels distinctly Korean despite its source material, which is a testament to his own talents. The tale goes into some dark places, which I’ll be interested to see are also present in Silent Witness, considering the level of censorship Chinese movies are subject to. However as a standalone tale, Ji-woo’s decision to play with the audience for so much of the runtime was certainly a risky one, but in this case, it was one which paid off.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10
