Yadang: The Snitch
I’ll be honest- when I requested a screener for “Yadang: The Snitch,” I only knew it was a South Korean crime thriller, and I didn’t really read up on the premise because- as I’ve watched more South Korean films over the years, I’ve really loved them. (I also anticipated reviewing it for its April 25 release, but that’s a different story entirely.) Hwang Byeng-Gug’s film is a film I really appreciated watching unfold; it’s less centered on action and more on character and narrative, but that’s not surprising when it has a lead performance by Kang Ha-neul that fires on all the charm cylinders, and a premise that is not unfamiliar, but unfolds in a surprising way.
The opening of the film is spent watching as Hwang and screenwriter Hyo-seok Kim set the stage for us. In order to fight the drug trade in South Korea, some police and prosecutors have made their entire approach about using professional “snitches”- who have no qualms betraying their sources- to target deals, and make busts. At the center of this particular racket is Lee Kang-soo (Kqng’s character), the snitch of the title, and Oh Sang-jae (Park Hae-joon), a narcotics detective whose relationship with Lee is mutually beneficial, until an aspiring actress (Chae Won-been) is caught, and has to clear her name. After they are busted, Lee and Oh must figure out how to get revenge against the hungry prosecutor who helped frame them to take the fall.
“Yadang” is a truly fun thriller, with twists and double crosses worthy of one of Soderbergh’s “Ocean” movies, and a sense of questionable morality worth comparing to a John Woo film (Hyo-seok, it should be mentioned, adapted Woo’s “A Better Tomorrow” in 2010, so the kinship is not a shock). The film does not really have a visual style, but it does have a distinctive tone that works to its benefit. It is anchored by musician-turned-actor Kang, but all of the main principles of the cast have a part to play in finding the tone that Hwang and Hyo-seok want to hit, and making it work. This was a film that got better as it built to its deliciously poetic finale, and it teased us in a way where we would almost want to watch more if the right story came along. It all comes down to the characters, and how the story is built around them. “Yadang: The Snitch” was a treat from start to finish.
