Beautiful Sunday

D

Directed by Jin Kwang Gyo

If "The Sparrow" was guilty of sucking in the audience with style only to reveal that it had no substance to it, Jin Kwang Gyo's "Beautiful Sunday" commits the opposite offense, namely of sacrificing style and structure in an effort to build a multilayered and compelling narrative. The story itself is pretty lurid, focusing on two individuals with equally dark deeds haunting their pasts. Detective Kang is the dirtiest of dirty cops, working in tandem with Seoul's underbelly to net an under the table profit on the drug trade in order to pay his wife's medical bills as she lies comotose in a hospital bed with injuries that may or may not have been caused by kang himself. Meanwhile, Min Woo is a college aged student who's infatuation with a neighborhood girl takes a turn for the criminal when, overcome by desire one fateful night, he drags the object of his affection to a secluded area and rapes her. Shockingly, Min Woo continues to pursue her even after he has raped her, benefitting from the fact that his victim never saw his face during her assault.

The storyline here had some obvious potential if nothing than for the reason that Min Woo and Detective Kang's stories were bound to meet up at some point and seeing how was one of the main intrigues of the movie. Furthermore, the heinousness of both characters actions made the possibility for a profound and potentially very interesting reflection on the nature of sin and the ability for humans to live with themselves after having committed suck clearly immoral actions. Although "Beautiful Sunday" spend some time dealing with these questions and even though the film benefits from a rather clever twist that helps explain the link between Detective Kang and Min Woo's stories, the flim never succeeds in building significant intrique or really keeping the audience guessing like a good thriller should. The morally grave subject matter is also glossed over fairly quickly although Jin Kwang Gyo does succeed in depicting both Detective Kang and Min Woo neither as morally bankrupt, souless invidiauls nor as misunderstand, essentially good men. Rather, both characters are shown as being what all humans are--flawed. Their flaws, however, result in significantly more important actions and resulting consequences, however, a reality "Beautiful Sunday" does not let us escape.

The biggest problem with "Beautiful Sunday," however, is that it seems to have sacrificed production value and visual aesthetic in favor of building intrigue and setting the audience up for the film's third act. As I commented in my review of "The Sparrow," building a cohesive and tight narrative is not a task that should be ignored but the visual aesthetic of a film impacts the overall success of picture in a way that makes it difficult to enjoy a film that is visually unimpressive, which "Beautiful Sunday" often is.