Man Standing Next, The (2020) Review

“The Man Standing Next” Theatrical Poster

Director: Woo Min-Ho
Cast: Lee Byung-Hun, Lee Sung-Min, ak Do-Won, Lee Hee-Joon, Kim So-Jin, Seo Hyun-Woo, Ji Hyun-Joon, Park Sung-Geun, Park Ji-Il, Lee Tae-Hyeong, Kim Seung-Hoon
Running Time: 114 min.

By Paul Bramhall

South Korea has had a tumultuous history since its creation after the division of the peninsula in 1954, shortly after the Korean War ended, up to it achieving democracy in 1987. While it spent most of the 33 years under some form of authoritarian regime or another, the era which still causes controversy to this day is the time spent under the rule of Park Chung-hee, who came to power in 1962 following a military coup the year prior. As president Chung-hee kept himself in power up until his assassination in October 1979, and while he’s largely credited for the rapid modernisation of Korea, it’s a legacy which is stained by his autocratic style of ruling. The many restrictions on things like freedom of speech and the press, and the fact that his opponents frequently found themselves held without trial and subject to torture, gradually saw the tide of public opinion begin to turn against him by the late 70’s.

The subject of Chung-hee’s assassination has been covered before in the Korean film industry, notably in Im Sang-soo’s 2005 dark comedy The President’s Last Bang, which covered the 3 hours leading up to the assassination along with the immediate aftermath. 15 years later, the subject is back on the screen with director Woo Min-ho’s latest, The Man Standing Next. Decidedly different in both tone and scope than Sang-soo’s take on the subject, Min-ho has created a poker-faced political thriller that covers the 40 days leading up to the fateful event, and its subject matter is the assassin, played by the legendary Lee Byung-hun.

Based on author Kim Choong-seek’s novel Chiefs of Namsan, the plot focuses on the head of the KCIA (Korean Central Intelligence Agency), who would ultimately become the man who pulls the trigger. It’s worth giving some background to the KCIA, as while it sounds legitimate, in reality the agency (which was created shortly before Jung-hee came to power) was used to supress and disrupt anti-government or pro-North Korean groups. Essentially used to protect Jung-hee’s position of power by torturing anyone suspected of being critical towards him, the agency soon became feared by the likes of students and reporters, who frequently found themselves hauled away and savagely beaten. The irony is that Kim Jae-gyu, who was appointed by Jung-hee to head the KCIA in 1976, was close with the president, both hailing from the same hometown and graduating from the Korea Military Academy in 1946 together.

It’s a relationship which is understandably ripe for cinematic exploration, that of 2 idealistic friends that grow up together, only for their ideals to gradually set them on different paths, with the leadership of a whole country at stake. The question is if Woo Min-ho is the man to do it. As a director Min-ho is infuriatingly inconsistent. Both his debut and sophomore features, 2010’s Man of Vendetta and 2012’s Spy, are mediocre to middling, then in 2015 he hit us with Inside Men, one of the best Korean movies of the decade. While it seemed he’d hit his stride, in 2017 he followed it up with The Drug King. How do you mess up a movie which reunites Song Kang-ho and Bae Doona after not sharing the screen together for more than 10 years? It seems Min-ho was eager to give us the answer, as The Drug King was an unwatchable bloated mess.

I ended my review for that one by saying “For me the jury is still out on Min-ho as a director and screenwriter, however if The Drug King is indicative of the style of movie he wants to make, I’ll clock out here.” I meant it, however I confess to not foreseeing him re-team up with his Inside Men star Lee Byung-hun, an actor I’ll watch in almost anything. Perhaps Byung-hun is Min-ho’s golden ticket, but with The Man Standing Next he’s once again created a thoroughly engaging thriller that will likely stand up as one of the best movies of the year, if not the decade (I know we’re only 10 months in, but I’m calling it). Min-ho may have fictionalised the names of those surrounding Chung-hee (and understandably so, considering the lawsuits The President’s Last Bang had to deal with), but Byung-hun is clearly playing Kim Jae-gyu.

Stepping into the shoes of Jung-hee himself is Lee Sung-min, who’s worked with Min-ho before on The Drug King (but we won’t hold it against him), but has come into his own in recent years thanks to his roles in The Witness and The Spy Gone North. He puts in a powerhouse performance here as Jung-hee, playing him as a man who’s aware that his time in power maybe coming to an end, but whose pride seems unwilling to let it go. The plot itself revolves around another of Sung-min and Byung-hun’s close accquaintances, who’s broken rank and escaped to Paris where he’s both written a memoir denouncing the regime, and testified against Sung-min in front of the U.S. Senate. Before anymore damage can be done, Sung-min dispatches Byung-hun to Paris to hunt down their former collague and silence him, retrieving the memoir while he’s there so it can’t be published.

Played by Kwak Do-won (Steel Rain, The Wailing), once Byung-hun meets him it turns out Do-won has more information than first thought, planting the smallest seed of doubt in Byung-hun’s unwavering loyalty to Sung-min, and one that sets him on the path for which he’d be remembered. While the setup sounds tailor made to crank up the tension, Min-ho allows proceedings to playout as a slow burn. To a degree we know the ending, so the key here is to draw the audience into the journey, and the narrative allows us to get to know each character and their relationship with each other in an unhurried way, which works perfectly. Byung-hun on the surface plays the character as a picture of composure, however within the context of the story it fits, making the times when emotions overflow carry a lot of impact, and Byung-hun is an actor able to portray what’s just simmering beneath the surface with the smallest of nuances.

The performances are complimented by the (as usual for a Korean production) outstanding period production values, and even moreso by the locaiton shooting. Events play out across Seoul, Washington DC, and Paris, and the cinematography makes the most of each city. A shot with Byung-hun and Do-won on the steps of the Lincoln memorial is a standout, and Paris by night is captured as a city of intrigue and danger. Notoriously difficult to get shooting permits for, The Man Standing Next owes a debt of thanks to Parasite, which made the French firm fans of Korean cinema, allowing for the permit in question to be granted with surprising ease. Similar to Take Point, the production also benefits from utilising foreign actors who can actually act, an element which should be a given, but one that can never be taken for granted in Asian productions even in 2020.

While the sense of paranoia runs throughout the 110 minute runtime, the final scene in particular is a masterclass in tension building as various parties congregate over dinner, and Byung-hun grapples with the reality of what he plans to do. Its so palpable I could have swore a bead of sweat formed on my own forehead. The scene does highlight one of the scripts (also by Min-ho) minor flaws, with the introduction of 2 of Byung-hun’s trusted colleagues who we meet for the first time during the scene, and we know nothing about despite them playing a critical role. Likewise for Kim So-jin (The Divine Move, New Trial) who has a role as one of Byung-hun’s associates, but ultimately feels like a plot device more than a fully fleshed out character. But these are minor quibbles in what’s a thoroughly entertaining tale of espinoage and betrayal, although who the betrayer is will largely depend on your perspecitve.

The Man Standing Next closes with an audio clip where we get to hear the real Kim Jae-gyu give his reasons for doing what he did during his trial, played over still images from both the trial and the aftermath of the event itself. Whatever Jae-gyu’s reasoning was, ultimately it’d be another 8 years before Korea achieved democracy. Chung-hee’s assassination paved the way for Chun Doo-hwan, a military strongman who’d been operating a secret unit with the blessing of Chung-hee, to launch a coup that placed him as the head of the KCIA, and within a year he’d made himself the new president, beginning one of Korea’s darkest periods. The Man Standing Next offers a detailed and thoroughly engaging look at Jae-gyu and his relationship with Chung-hee, anchored by a pair of compelling performances from Lee Byung-hun and Lee Sung-min, and deserves to be seen.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 8.5/10