The Villagers
I don’t know why it is taking seven years for this film to hit the United States- it was originally made in 2018 under the name, “Ordinary People”- but I’m glad it finally arrived. It is also a reminder that South Korean crime thrillers can get downright nasty. This is a dark story, but I really dug it.
Don Lee plays Ki-chul, a gym teacher and former boxer who’s been working security at a girl’s school in a small Korean town. His main focus- according to his supervisors- is to make sure tuitions get paid. But he finds himself roped into the disappearance of a friend by one of the students (Yu-jin, played by Kim Sae-ron). While he seems like a strong person to have on a case like that, and finds some clues along the way, his supervisors don’t want him getting involved. Just collect the tuitions. But he can’t let it go, and the more he looks into it, the more he finds a deeper conspiracy at play.
“The Villagers” ends with action fireworks, but it holds steady as a slow-burn for much of its run time, which is a brisk 99 minutes. Im Jin-soon, as writer-director, is concerned about building out the narrative, the relationships, and the characters carefully, and how we experience the connection that plays out between Ki-chul and Yu-jin, and how they are drawn further into this dark world that took Yu-jin’s friend. The mechanics of the plot are very familiar to anyone who watched this type of movie, but there’s something about the way Jin-soon has it play out that is unique to this particular story. We don’t immediately see how this could be a conspiracy early on, and that unfolds methodically, with purpose. One of the strongest aspects of the film is how it doesn’t rely on Lee’s physicality but the character’s intelligence to move through the narrative…until his physical traits are needed. That is a good setup for the character, and it benefits the film tremendously as it moves forward.
Ki-chul is a very traditional action hero- someone who sees things in black-and-white- but, as I mentioned, he doesn’t rely on his action skills throughout the entire film. That’s a big part of what elevates “The Villagers” from typical action movie junk. This is about a character wading into darkness, and finding a purpose beyond what we’re told to do. He and Sae-ron have a strong chemistry, and it helps deliver a compelling thriller.
