Veteran - Above the Law

Enthusiastic reviews, happy earnings, but unfortunately disappointing for me. Veteran has the traditional great Korean visuals and lots of familiar faces, but story-wise I found it too flat. There's hardly any blood for a thriller, not a very interesting story for a drama and very little action for an action film, actually only at the beginning and at the end, although I was pleased with the solid 15 minute finale where the director serves us two very well choreographed fights and an intense car chase, but I was so tired of the flow that I couldn't enjoy it properly. At least the young actor Ah-in Yoo should be praised, he played the young, rude, arrogant, spineless and almighty mob boss very convincingly (he knows martial arts, I'm sure we'll see him again soon). It's not bad, but because of the draggy pace and lack of action, Veteran didn't grow on me. 60% (10.11.2015)

Veteran does not deserve attention for its cinematic qualities, entertaining spectacle or the director’s typically brilliant physical action choreography, though in these respects it is a very solid genre mix. Much more noteworthy is the fact that, contrary to expectations, this solid yet not especially exceptional film became the third most-watched movie of all time in Korea. In this respect, the film has a perfect exploitation-style narrative, which for most of the runtime only builds up the outrage toward the demonised, degenerate parvenu and then allows that outrage to be vented in a gladiatorial manner. Paradoxically, however, the narrative concurrently serves as a means of justifying police brutality or even straight-up glorifying it as a necessary way to make the bastards who remain beyond the reach of the law at least partially pay the price for their actions. (26.06.2016)