Sung-bo Shim's Haemoo centers around Captain Kang and his fishing crew, men who have fallen on rough times due to seas that are not as giving as they were in the past. Kang is struggling so much financially that he is about to lose his boat, and in an act of desperation he agrees to a smuggling job, that entails sneaking Chinese immigrants into the country. Captain Kang doesn't tell his crew about the smuggling job until they are already at sea, but when an unexpected tragedy takes place, Kang finds his desperation isn't equaled by everyone else in his crew. Sung-bo Shim's Haemoo is the latest dark and gritty film to come out of South Korea, focusing on extreme lengths men are willing to go in order to survive. Haemoo is a film that is best going into blind, as it features a reveal about halfway through the film that triggers a descent into madness. Without giving too much away, lets just say that Haemoo focuses on Captain Kang, a character who goes to extreme measures, including murder, in an attempt to keep his business alive. Stylish and well-designed, the film does a great job of using its setting to evoke the mood of the story, using clear waters and sunny oceans in the beginning of the story that quickly turn dark and stormy after the traumatic incident. I particularly liked the use of sea fog that rols into the film after the incident, which supplies a gloomy atompshere that clearly matches the darkness of what is going on in the story. While the film seems to have something interesting to say about the Male psyche in general, as many members of ship's crew seem to be borderline obsessed with some form of sexual interaction with the Chinese immigrants, Haemoo doesn't follow through much on these ideals, focused more on delivering a stripped-down, intense narrative. While at first I had major problems with the love aspect of the story involving the youngest member of the crew and the lone Chinese immigrant that survives, Haemoo redeems itself in the final sequence, showing how their love was more a mirage for the sake of survival than any true connection, subverting the viewers' expectations from what was built up throughout the story. Haemoo is a solid and unrelenting thriller, being just the latest in a long line of gritty thrillers to come out of South Korea.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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