‘The Killers’: Fantasia Review

Dirs. Kim Jong-kwan, Roh Deaok, Chang Cling-jun, Lee Myung-Se. South Korea. 2024. 119mins

Ernest Hemingway’s much-reprinted 1927 quick story ‘The Killers’ begins with a pair of hitmen strolling right into a restaurant to kill an ex-boxer who is anticipated to reach shortly. It’s a situation {that a} quartet of South Korean administrators search to place particular person stamps on on this patchy crime anthology. Of those filmmakers, the identify that may stand out to long-time admirers of South Korean cinema is the veteran of the bunch, Lee Myung-Se, who has by no means fairly recaptured the sheer brio of his trailblazing police procedural Nowhere to Cover (1999). If the others lack any comparable credit, they nonetheless go for broke in a bid to revitalise the noir trope of murderers for rent.

This pulp concoction largely trades Hemingway’s trademark spareness for heightened stylistics

The Killers receives its Canadian premiere on the Fantasia Movie Competition, following its debut at New York Asian Movie Competition, and its multi-director format ought to immediate post-screening debate about whose entry is the most effective. Additional publicity might, nevertheless, be restricted to genre-oriented occasions. Though upfront about its literary inspiration, this pulp concoction largely trades Hemingway’s trademark spareness for heightened stylistics, extreme bloodletting and wanton genre-splicing which make it one more addition to the over-flowing pile of post-Tarantino crime photos. Which means The Killers might wrestle to hit the mark as a streaming title, no matter its sharp presentation.

It begins in grisly vogue with Kim Jong-kwan’s ’Metamorphosis’, whereby a person with a knife in his again wakes up in a bar to be served more and more unusual cocktails by a seductive bartender. As her true motives are revealed, Kim launches right into a visceral conflict between underworld and supernatural forces.Subsequent up is Roh Deok’s sardonic ‘Contractors’ which focuses on three small-time criminals tasked with murdering a morally reprehensible music professor. 

The milieu then goes again to the Nineteen Seventies in Chang Cling-jun’s ’Everyone seems to be Ready for the Man’, with President Park Chung Hee in workplace and curfews in impact. It revolves round a often quiet bar the place the proprietor finds herself within the midst of a harmful sting operation. Lee wraps issues up with ‘Silent Cinema’, which is about in a retro-dystopian cityscape. Two hitmen enter a diner to take out a goal who eats on the institution on the similar time day-after-day, just for the eccentric employees to trigger issues.

The Killers is a snazzily packaged anthology which performs like a self-reflexive South Korean tackle pulp magazines. There are eye-catching variations in mise-en-scène, an ensemble forged who slip into their roles with ease and allusions to Edward Hopper’s iconic portray Nighthawks that ties every thing collectively as a recurring motif. Sadly, the shared template implies that a way of repetition quickly units in regardless of the tales being completely distinctive in aesthetic phrases. Other than ‘Contractors’, every happens in a contained area which permits the administrators to steadiness stress and levels of darkish humour till graphic violence erupts. 

It arguably peaks with Chang’s appreciably gradual burn third vignette, which not solely boasts atmospheric interval recreation however is the one one which leans into the ruthlessly pared down nature of the supply materials – albeit with some smutty gags thrown in. Chang confidently fuses the chamber piece dynamics of The Hateful Eight (2015) with the spaghetti western sensibility of Johnnie To circa Exiled (2006), whereas eliciting a terrifically assured efficiency from Oh Yeon-a as a bar proprietor who’s greater than able to dealing with disruptive prospects.

The others are much less satisfying. ‘Metamorphosis’ has an off-kilter after hours vibe which is enhanced by some alternative banter earlier than Kim lets rip with the gore results – though the gradual descent into horror territory gained’t shock anybody who has seen Vamp (1986) or From Nightfall until Daybreak (1996). Nonetheless, it’s a extra entertaining mash-up than ‘Silent Cinema’ which sees Lee mixing the cartoonish monochrome of Sin Metropolis (2005) with flights of fancy paying homage to Jean-Pierre Jeunet at his most indulgent. It’s by far probably the most experimental entry, however Lee’s penchant for freeze frames and gradual movement makes it much less of a narrative than a painfully prolonged slapstick set piece.

The odd one out is ‘Contractors’, which relies on a real-life 2019 case. Roh takes satirical photographs on the precarious nature of outsourcing in an amusing establishing sequence that illustrates the hit being contracted and subcontracted to the purpose that three criminals take it on for pocket change and key particulars get fudged because the job is handed down. A scruffy palette removes the depiction of violence from the realms of pastiche, but conversational emphasis on the contradictory life objectives of those employed goons (they need to turn out to be a police officer, a nun and an actor respectively) creates an uncomfortable deadpan disconnect.

Anthology options are often conceived as showcases for administrators, however The Killers additionally additional show the skills of actress Shim Eun-kyung, who’s greatest identified for Miss Granny (2014) and The Journalist (2019). Taking part in markedly completely different roles in three of the tales (and glimpsed in {a photograph} in ’Everyone seems to be Ready for the Man’), the versatile Shim inhabits every of her characters (calculating bartender, distressed sufferer, kooky waitress) with a precision that her administrators don’t all the time match.