Childe, The (2023) Review

“The Childe” Theatrical Poster

Director: Park Hoon-Jung
Cast: Kim Sun-Ho, Kang Tae-Ju, Kim Kang-Woo, Go Ara, Justin John Harvey, Caroline Magbojos
Running Time: 118 min.

By Paul Bramhall

As a director and scriptwriter Park Hoon-jung has become one of the most consistent commercial filmmakers in Korea since his debut with The Showdown in 2010, going on to helm a further 7 productions over the next 13 years. His latest arrives in the form of 2023’s The Childe, arriving almost a year to the day since the release of 2022’s The Witch: Part 2. The Other One. In my review for his super powered teens featuring sequel I’d highlighted how some of Hoon-jung’s distinctive trademarks include “a fondness for blood shed (seemingly the messier the better), and an apparent allergy to runtimes of less than 2 hours.” Well, with The Childe only half of that statement rings true, as for the first time since his debut he’s helmed a production that clocks in at less than 2 hours (it may be by only 2 minutes, but it still counts).

The plot of Hoon-jung’s latest involves the plight of a half Korean half Filipino amateur boxer. Played by K-drama actor Kang Tae-ju, he lives a tough life in Manila looking after his bedridden mother, while harbouring a dream to find his father in Korea in the hope of making a better life for them both. Efforts to locate the father so far through a local agency have proved unsuccessful, so it’s a surprise to everyone when a delegation from South Korea arrives looking for Tae-ju, revealing that his father doesn’t have long to live and wishes to meet the son he left behind.

It also happens that his father is the chairman of a wealthy business empire, one which soon sees Tae-ju whisked off to Seoul in first class. Unfortunately the luxury can’t be fully enjoyed, since he has to contend with the fact he’s being followed by an enigmatic assassin, played by another K-drama actor in the form of Kim Seon-ho. What Seon-ho’s intentions are is never clear, both to Tae-ju and the audience, with the question of whether he’s a friend or foe frequently leaning towards the latter. However Seon-ho turns out to be the least of Tae-ju’s problems once he arrives in Korea, with the introduction of his half-brother (played by Kim Kang-woo – Recalled, The Vanished) revealing that the reason for his being summoned may not be as pure as first thought.

The plot is a welcome change from Hoon-jung’s more straight up gangster flicks, with stories involving Kopino’s a rarity in Korean cinema. While technically the term refers to someone of mixed Korean and Filipino heritage, in reality it’s more commonly used to refer to half Korean half Filipino kids that are raised by the single Filipino mother, the result of Korean men visiting the country for sex tourism and not using protection. The only other production which springs to mind that features a Kopino character in a prominent role is Lee Sang-woo’s Tropical Manila from 2008, a typically grimy look at the dark side of human nature. With The Childe though Hoon-jung isn’t so much interested in exploring the challenges that Kopino’s face, instead using Tae-ju’s character as a fresh perspective to frame the usual double crossings and bloodletting that populate his stories. 

If you’re a fan of Hoon-jung then that’s not a negative, being a case of the same wine in a new bottle. From the opening minutes its apparent we’re in familiar territory, as we witness Seon-ho’s assassin beat a pair of hapless thugs half to death with a monkey wrench, leaving them for dead in a derelict Manila warehouse. While it initially appears like we’re in similar tonal territory to the likes of The New World and Night in Paradise, to his credit Hoon-jung does go for something a little different here. Namely, there’s an absurdist comedic streak that permeates throughout The Childe, and almost all of it rests on the shoulders of Seon-ho as the mysterious assassin.

It was around a third of the way in that I found myself questioning exactly who was supposed to be the main character in Hoon-jung’s latest – Tae-ju as the in over his head Kopino boxer, or Seon-ho as the sharply dressed assassin. To their credit, while many K-drama actors struggle to convert their small screen popularity to big screen charisma, both do a stellar job of carrying the 2-hour runtime between them, with Seon-ho in particular hopefully heralding a breakout role. His portrayal of an unstoppable and feared assassin is constantly undermined by a number amusingly self-effacing asides, a combination which almost make it seem like he’s acting in another movie altogether, but one that also makes him the scene stealer of The Childe. 

While everyone else is unmistakably featuring in a slice of the usual Park Hoon-jung macho posturing, Seon-ho plays his killer for hire as an obsessive metrosexual, one who cares more about his appearance than he does catching his target. After an intense chase comes to its apparent conclusion the camera lingers on Seon-ho, and rather than yelling obscenities per the traditional Korean gangster trope, instead he hurriedly styles his ruffled hair back to its desired appearance, assuring himself he looks ok before exiting the scene. While such scenes would be far from comedy gold if it The Childe was a straight up satire, the fact that everything around him is played completely poker-faced results in an off-beat tone that really works in its favour, a kind of reversal of Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove if you will.

It’s not the first time for Hoon-jung to aim at injecting elements of humor into a narrative, since he made similar attempts with The Witch: Part 2. The Other One, which for the most part fell flat on their face and grated against the overall tone, however here he’s found the right balance. In fact from the moment that Seon-ho gives chase to Tae-ju in a sequence that sees them both leap off a bridge to the ground below, falling from a height that in reality would result in a minimum of broken legs, it becomes clear that Hoon-jung is in a more playful mood than usual. Once you switch on to the same wavelength there’s a lot to enjoy from a comedic standpoint, from a hilarious money exchange sequence, to the ridiculous amount of time dedicated to watching Tae-ju run away from cars that are after him.

The only downside is that between Seon-ho’s assassin and Kim Kang-woo’s villainous half-brother, Tae-ju essentially has his own move stolen out from under him. That’s likely down to the script intentionally playing things out that way, and to a degree he’s also a relative newcome to the acting game, having only had roles in the K-drama’s Missing: The Other Side (2020) and Hello, Me! (2021) prior to taking the lead here. Hoon-jung’s decision to cast non-movie actors as the leads is one that pays off though, and with Tae-ju’s dialogue being almost half in English (perhaps even a little more), he pulls off performing in a non-native tongue with aplomb, never once being taken out of the movie as is so often the case.

Of course any Hoon-jung production wouldn’t be complete without a messy blood splattered finale, making him one of the few directors left in Korea who’s still willing to make the kind of chaotic, stab heavy action scenes that were a staple of the countries gangster genre up until around the mid-2010’s. Needless to say, here he doesn’t disappoint, resulting in a one versus many throwdown that sees bodies strewn everywhere in a frantic and messy close quarters showdown.

With a welcome streak of humor, and zero compromise on his typically violent approach to storytelling, I’d be willing to say The Childe is the best work Hoon-jung has done since his sophomore feature with 2013’s The New World. The fact that it’s under 2 hours and features a scene stealing performance from Kim Seon-ho is just the icing on the cake.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7.5/10