“Illang: The Wolf Brigade” Theatrical Poster
Director: Kim Ji-woon
Cast: Gang Dong-Won, Han Hyo-Joo, Jung Woo-Sung, Kim Moo-Yul, Han Ye-Ri, Heo Jun-Ho, Minho, Shin Eun-Soo, Kim Pub-Lae, Lee Dong-Ha, Choi Jin-Ho
Running Time: 138 min.
By Z Ravas
A Tale of Two Sisters. A Bittersweet Life. The Good, the Bad, the Weird. I Saw the Devil. Age of Shadows. Over the last 15 years, the work of Kim Jee-woon has come to help define popular Korean cinema. In that regard, he occupies the same rarefied echelon as filmmakers like Chan Wook-park (Oldboy) and Bong Joon-ho (The Host). Even Jee-woon’s brief foray into Hollywood filmmaking, the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle The Last Stand, is now seen as little more than an unfortunate blip in an otherwise remarkably consistent career. It should come as no surprise that each new film by Kim Jee-woon arrives with a massive amount of hype and expectation; this may go some ways to explain just why his latest work, the Netflix-distrbuted Illang: The Wolf Brigade, has been met with a wave of negative reviews since its release in South Korea last summer, where it underperformed at the box office.
Illang is loosely based on the manga from Ghost in the Shell creator Mamoru Oshii, which itself was adapted into the popular anime feature Jin-Roh back in 1999. The opening twenty minutes of Illang, as weighed down by exposition as they may be, are likely what fans of the anime were hoping to see: in a near-future unified Korea, police in riot gear uniforms clash with unruly protestors and anti-government terrorists known as the Sect. Amid the violence, the Wolf Brigade – a specially trained and heavily armored brand of government response force – are unleashed upon the Sect forces with a hail of machinegun fire. Make no mistake, Warner Brothers (who co-produced with Lewis Pictures) has thrown some money at this film. Illang boasts high production values; the opening’s slick futuristic look and high powered weaponry had me thinking we were in for director Kim Jee-woon’s own take on Paul Verhoeven’s Eighties classic Robocop.
From there, the film temporarily pumps it brakes, and one realizes that the Jin-Roh source material is merely a framework for Kim Jee-woon to tell a standard Korean revenge tale. As it turns out, the higher-ups in the government feel the Wolf Brigade are a little too good at their jobs. Those in power prefer the status quo, as instability and chaos on the streets create the perfect climate to maintain control over the populace. Some shady government types hatch a plan to frame a Wolf Brigade soldier (The Master’s Gang Dong-won) for a terrorist plot so they can use him as a scapegoat to disband the Wolf Brigade entirely. Unfortunately for them, Gang Dong-won is too cunning to fall for their scheme and he evades capture with the help of a former Sect member, played by Han Hyo-joo (Cold Eyes). The story of a well-trained soldier on the run from relentless hit squads with a doe-eyed beauty in tow frequently put me in mind of Lee Jung-beom’s 2014 No Tears for the Dead, and at times Kim Jee-woon seems as though he’s trying his damndest to out-do the action sequences in that film.
Granted, Illang’s emphasis on world building and technical prowess means that the characters frequently recede into the background – in truth, it was halfway through the movie before I realized that Gang Dong-won was meant to be our protagonist. Can you blame me? With megastar Jung Woo-sung’s (Asura: City of Madness) stoic drill instructor and Kim Moo Yeol’s (War of the Arrows) slimy bureaucrat taking up so much screentime, it can be difficult to know who we’re supposed to follow. Kim Jee-woon has a relatively straightforward story on his hands but chooses to focus on its dizzying layers of conspiracy. The director continually runs the risk of muddling a very simple narrative, but then he throws another shootout or car chase your way, and suddenly all that matters is that you’re in the hands of someone who can expertly orchestrate a kinetic action sequence. Jee-woon’s blockbuster style here involves a fluid blend of handheld and steadicam work, jawdropping aerial photography amid hundreds of extras, and a glorious amount of spent bullet casings.
In the interest of full disclosure, it’s been well over a decade since I’ve seen the anime adaptation of Jin-Roh. It’s an animated feature known for its methodical pace, moody contemplation of the relationship between statecraft and terrorism, and frequent allusions to the Red Riding Hood fairy tale. I can understand if fans of the manga and anime feel as though Kim Jee-woon has betrayed his source material by deploying it as window dressing for yet another Korean action/thriller, a genre that is starting to feel more than a little familiar now that we’re eight years after The Man From Nowhere (and a whopping thirteen since A Bittersweet Life). In truth, The Wolf Brigade functions best when it’s not attempting to contemplate whether Gang Dong-won is a wolf in man’s clothing or vice versa, and instead doubles down on Kim Jee-woon’s penchant for ultra-violence: case in point, the film climaxes with a brickwall-busting tussle that tells me Jee-woon has seen and studied John Hyams’ Universal Soldier: Regeneration.
I began this review with a list of some of Kim Jee-woon’s best and most acclaimed works. I can guarantee that Illang: The Wolf Brigade will never be counted among them. But judged on its own merits, as a slick piece of pop entertainment you can watch with the effortless click of a button thanks to Netflix, The Wolf Bridgade is a damn fine action movie and a not altogether bad way to spend a Saturday night.
Z Ravas’ Rating: 7.5/10
Great review Zack! Now I definitely want to see this. I can imagine those action sequences, your writing achieves that 🙂
I’ve wanted to see the anime, but didn’t get the chance. It sounds like I should watch this first.
It’s a shame the movie is hated by so many. And it’s soley because it’s strays from the source material?
I know it’s not up to Kim’s standards, but I liked The Last Stand as a big dumb action flick.
I think if you approach Illang as another “big dumb action flick” that’s ten times as violent as The Last Stand, you’ll have a good time with this movie…!
Entertaining review Mr. Ravas! I’d been waiting for Kim Jee-woon to work with Gang Dong-won on a full length feature since they made the short film ‘The X’ together in 2013, so good to see it came to fruition. I’ll be checking this out for sure once it hits Blu-ray.
One point of clarification though, this isn’t a Netflix movie. Netflix purchased the international distribution rights (ruining any chance of it being shown on the big screen outside of Korea, or getting a physical release for that matter), but they didn’t put any money behind it. I’ve noticed they’re acquiring the international distribution rights to a few Korean flicks lately, which I’m sure isn’t pleasing for the Well Go USA crew, but at least it means they should reach a wider audience. As far as I’m aware, the only Netflix produced Korean movie to date is ‘Okja’.
Hi Paul, glad you enjoyed the review. I should have done some more research – the reason I said the film was in part produced by Netflix was because during the opening credits of ‘Illang,’ there was a glaring in-English ‘NETFLIX’ listed among all the Korean names and companies, which made me assume Netflix had actually ponied up some money for this movie. God knows they seem to have a lot of cash to spare. But yes, according to Variety, they acquired nearly global rights to the film in July 2018. The only Korean productions they’ve directly funded are the aforementioned ‘Okja,’ and two series: ‘Love Alarm,’ and one I’m actually looking forward to, ‘Kingdom’ (from the director of ‘Tunnel’!).
I really like Gang Dong-won and it’s almost hard to put my finger on why. He’s just a welcome presence onscreen. I feel like I haven’t even seen him in his best roles yet – ‘The Master’ and ‘The Priests’ were pretty good but not emphatically great – but he comes across as a serious actor who can sink into a role. Here, I’m not sure if I buy him as an unstoppable badass as much as, say, Jang Dong-gun in ‘No Tears for the Dead,’ but I find him to be a way more credible actor.
(Watch, all of the Jang Dong-gun fans are gonna come after me now.)
Sheesh. Does that also mean The Night Comes for Us wont get a physical release either? I was hoping since their exclusive series get released on DVD, they’d do the same with the films.
Unfortunately for any territory where Netflix acquires the distribution rights, it’s safe to assume there’ll be no physical release. Personally I think it’s a crime that ‘Okja’ doesn’t have a Blu-ray release.
One would think Netflix would want to make more money from Blu Ray/DVD sales. It’s only for their exclusives, so it’s not like they’re going back to the past.
Agreed. It’s also why, for people like myself who enjoy their physical media fix, a multi-region Blu-ray player is a necessity.
So far, I know for sure Netflix has global distribution rights for ‘The Chase’, ‘ Steel Rain’, ‘Pandora’, and ‘Psychokinesis’. Thankfully all of them have DVD/Blu-ray releases in Korea, with the exception of ‘Psychokinesis’.
Oh yes, shelling out an arm and a leg for a big gizmo that you have to lug around if you want to show your friends a certain film.
Distributors love making consumerism easy.
One horrible remake, the anime is 10 times better (that includes the action scenes, much more “visceral” and bloody, the last part so desperate, a love story dead before being born, the SUPERB OST,…
How much money does Netflix and Co give to sites like yours to write good reviews for their crap? Come on, we know how it works…
Aerosniff: You figured us out. Both Netflix and Well Go USA pay us thousands of dollars to write reviews for their movies. And just to remind of how much of the upper hand we have, we’re still able to give low/average scores to their films while being on their pay roll. Integrity comes first:
http://cityonfire.com/rampant-2018-rating-korean-horror-zombie-review/
http://cityonfire.com/crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon-sword-of-destiny-2016-review-sequel-2/
http://cityonfire.com/the-thousand-faces-of-dunjia-2017-review/
I sat down to watch this last night, and would rank it a fraction below Zack’s rating at 7/10. I haven’t read or watched the Japanese manga and anime, so probably went in with more of an open mind than fans of either. Korea has proven it can do great things with manga source material (‘OldBoy’ being the obvious example), but even without being overly familiar in this case, it’s easy to get the feeling that (as the review mentions), it’s been used more as a framework than any attempt at a faithful adaptation.
What it’s eventually about is Gang Dong-won’s decision to rescue Han Hyo-joo, but Jee-woon keeps a lot of moving parts in the background, probably as much to flesh out the world ‘Illang’ takes place in as it is out of obligation to the source material. Some works and some doesn’t. The opening text heavy exposition dump covers so much ground it could justify its own movie, and the shared past between Dong-won and Kim Moo-yeol lacks the intended impact. I enjoyed the cloak and dagger conspiracy stuff though, and the screen-time given to the likes of Heo Joon-ho and Jung Woo-sung (here reuniting with Jee-woon 10 years after ‘The Good, The Bad, The Weird’) was very welcome.
Where ‘Illang’ excels in the action, with Jee-woon once again enlisting the services of the Seoul Action School as he did in ‘The Good, The Bad, The Weird’. While the action here doesn’t top his kimchi western, it comes pretty close. Ironically my favorite scene was one that didn’t feature the iconic suit – a thrilling escape from Seoul Tower and the subsequent car chase (within the confines of a parking lot). Plus we get a subtle (or not so subtle, depending on which way you look at it) homage to ‘Aliens’ involving motion trackers, which works really well.
If the reviewers are still around that cited ‘The Good, The Bad, The Weird’ as being too focused on visual thrills, and not enough on characterization, then ‘Illang’ could well be the death knell of Jee-woon’s career from their perspective. For everyone else though, it’s an entertaining slice of not-too-distant-future action, and its ambitions should be admired.