We
should all know this by now, but the terms “low-risk” and “high-yield” just do
not go together. We they are associated, you should be suspicious. A broker
like Kang Jae-hoon should have known better, but he let greed and arrogance
crowd out his better judgment. As an inevitable result, he personally paid a
stiff financial price, along with his friends and extended family. Fortunately,
his wife and young son have been largely untouched by the scandal while living
in Australia, but the time apart will make it even more difficult for Kang to
reconnect in Lee Joo-young’s A Single
Rider (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2017 New York Asian Film Festival.
After
humbling himself before his investors and getting the “bugger off” treatment
from the firm’s management, Kang books a one-way ticket to Sydney. Yet, shame
and instinct prevent him from immediately knocking on his wife’s suburban door.
Instead, he furtively observes Soo-jin in a technically chaste but undeniably
affectionate moment with her good natured, blokey neighbor Kris. Kang quickly
deduces their son and his daughter are friends at school—and one thing is very
close to leading to another.
Over
the course of days, Kang snoops through the house and shadows both Soo-jin and Kris.
During the course of his wanderings, he meets Yoo Jin-ah (or Geena to
Australians), who has just lost her entire work-abroad nest-egg to a group of
fellow Korean expats. Kang tries to help her as best he can, but his own recent
experiences make him grimly skeptical of justice.
Although
Rider is a quietly observational film
with a game-changer rug-pull that everyone will say they saw coming. Yet, if
put under sodium pentothal, nine out ten will probably have to admit they just
explained away all the tell-tale signs rather than following them to their
logical conclusion. In fact, it is better that way, because it allows for a
moment of massive grace.
This
is Lee Byung-hun as most of his American fans have never seen him. As Kang he
gives a quiet performance of careful shadings and deep power. He never resorts
to cheap, Streepian histrionics, but you can see the pain in his eyes and
slumped shoulders. Likewise, Kong Hyo-jin is tough, sensitive, and soulful as the
semi-estranged Soo-jin. Yet, it is former K-pop star [Ahn] So-hee who is
utterly heart-breaking as the naïve Geena Yoo.
