Spiritwalker
A man (Yoon Kyesang) wakes up just outside of a vehicle. He was on the driver’s side, but he doesn’t remember what happened. He’s bloodied and injured, and a man who looks homeless has said that he called an ambulance. At the hospital, details are not really coming back, but different flashes enter his consciousness. Not long after, though, he finds himself in another body. Why is this happening? A woman may hold the key while he stays alive.
“Spiritwalker” is an energetic and engaging thriller by Jae-geun Yoon that doesn’t really explain a whole lot. I didn’t think it did, at least. Keeping some of the mystery going for a film like this makes sense; why he is chased by members of criminal organizations and spy agencies makes less sense (although partially because he keeps finding himself in their bodies), though I suppose that has to do with giving us action sequences. I’m much more engaged with the “forgotten identity” part of the story, and the woman who loves him (Ji-Yeon Lim) whom he has to remember. Oh, and the homeless man (Ji-hwan Park) becomes his sidekick. When the film focuses on this aspect of the narrative, it’s a winner.
Even if “Spiritwalker” struggles to make much sense, where there’s clarity is how it visually represents its premise. This is a great film to just look at to see how Yoon creates the disorientation his main character feels in this situation. And the set pieces are pretty great, in and of themselves. For 108 minutes, it doesn’t really let up, which is a good way to not really have people thinking about the paper-thin grasp your film has on logic. We don’t know why he’s going through this, and the film doesn’t really care to illuminate us with such thoughts. We are just to accept that he is, and that he has a love story he has to find away back to. The sooner we get on board with that, the more we’ll enjoy the film as a whole. I ended up doing so quite a bit.
