If
acting really constitutes lying, then Ji Wan-ju is the Korean Laurence Olivier.
He gave up the stage, but he still does a strange kind of public performance as
an escort, phony best friend, and miscellaneous real life role-player for hire.
Usually, he stays on the right side of the law, but when he agrees to “act” as
a witness in a murder investigation, he finds himself materially abetting a
frame-up in Kim Jin-hwang’s The Boys Who
Cried Wolf (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2016 New York Asian Film Festival.
Ji
always had a bad feeling about the gig, but his sister needed money to pay for
their mother’s hospital bills. His new freelance client claims to be the
corporate CEO mother of a murder victim. Supposedly, the killer is a loner
orphan who will be released without eyewitness testimony linking him to the
crime. However, Ji is rather rattled to meet the mother of the accused after giving
his statement. Wracked with guilt, but reluctant to recant and risk legal consequences,
Ji sets about investigating the murder himself.
By
all accounts, the accused was the least likely suspect. Among his group of
recent military discharges, he was maybe the most even-keeled one.
Unfortunately, the deceased’s history of hazing his presumptive killer is
clearly prejudicial. The quick-tempered Kwang-suk looks like a much more likely
suspect, but his modest means could hardly support the conspiracy afoot. Further
complicating matters, the suicide of a recent escort client brings Ji
additional police attention, at the worst possible time.
Although
Wolf definitely counts as a thriller,
it is unusually gritty and understated. It could easily be adapted for the
stage, but its street-level perspective lends the film greater urgency. Kim’s quietly
grungy aesthetic is much closer to David Mamet than Alfred Hitchcock. Still, he
keeps hurling one-darned-thing-after-another at Ji and earns serious points for
originality with the profession of his string-pulling villain. Weirdly enough
given its peerlessly indie credentials, Wolf
is actually a refreshing counterpoint to the heavy-handed anti-corporate
bias of other Korean films at this year’s festival.
Park
Jong-hwan is almost too understated as Ji, but his delivery of the film’s
kicker is tough to shake off. At least, Song Ha-joon brings ferocious energy
and intensity as the edgy Kwang-suk. Cha Rae-hyoung is also entertainingly
sleazy as Ji’s agency boss and pseudo-friend.