Three seconds to blood. That might be a new record. I cannot fault Korean film for lack of explicit nor lack of action. Bad Guys: Reign of Chaos wasted no time in letting us know there’s gonna be blood, there’s gonna be weapons, there’s gonna be bodies. We’re clear, ya? Great, let’s dismember something.
To be honest, the film wasn’t as bloody as perhaps the opening portended, but only because several of the good guys failed to carry sharp weapons. Not shy about getting to the premise, either, Bad Guys topples a prison bus early on, allowing chaos to reign (to coin a phrase). My guess is that director Yong-ho Son has seen Con Air more than once. With dangerous prisoners on the loose, the police have no choice but to invoke a tactic that might seem logical on a movie screen, but is- in reality- asinine. That plot: assemble a special police force among other prisoners.
The idea is that the larger-than-life inmates are –to a person- actually good people that the system has failed. As direction goes, it’s very important to establish how these prison lives are not all that bad essentially because all the other prisoners fear them. I recognized Dong-seok Ma, who I’ve seen in several films, but none more relevant than the Korean version of Over the Top, Champion. The more I think about it, the more I think Bad Guys is the Korean answer to The Expendables. You can take that however you like.
You gotta love a film that comes up with such inventive alter-egos as “Goblin Foot,” “Crazy Dog,” and “Jessica.” Are there no Black Widows in South Korea?
Bad Guys: Reign of Chaos is pretty much exactly what you expect – it’s straight action with a collection of bad guys fighting a bigger collection of worse guys. The fight scenes aren’t John Wick level, but they aren’t bad, either. I’m told this is the movie version of a popular Korean TV show. That seems a tad backwards – it’s kinda like finding out Fight Club was a TV show for five years before the movie came out. I’d have to do the research, but my feeling among American media is far-more-often-than-not the movie inspired a TV show, not vice-versa (at least with respect to using a similar cast), and that goes double for action films. Tell you what, however, if action were my thing, I’d be looking up how to view that “Bad Guys” Korean TV show.
Familiar roots at a movie’s core
Recruiting inmates to settle a score
Korean efficiency
Downplays the deficiency
Their Dirty Dozen only requires four
Not Rated, 114 Minutes
Director: Yong-ho Son
Writer: Jung-hoon Han
Genre: A making the band movie, except with fists
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Action junkies
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Cops
