There
is nothing like an auto accident to stall a promising political career. Just
ask Teddy Kennedy. At least he survived to become a national punch-line. Koo
Myung-hui does not have the luxury of running as a Kennedy in Massachusetts,
but technically, he was not a party to the accident. It was his horrible son
Yo-han behind the wheel. His callous and reckless behavior will ignite a deluge
of agonizing moral dilemmas in Lee Su-jin’s Idol,
which won the Cheval Noir Awards for best feature and best actor at the 2019 Fantasia International Film Festival.
Koo
was feeling pretty good about the chances for his anticipated gubernatorial
campaign, until he returned home to find his son and wife washing blood of the
family car. Then he noticed the body in the duffel bag. His wife is in full
cover-up mode, like Hillary Clinton deleting emails, but Koo will not play
along. Instead, he has them return the body to the scene of the crime and then
forces the entitled Yo-han to turn himself in. They just fudge with the
timeline a little.
Of
course, things get complicated when reports of a witness surface. Suspecting
the death [or murder] of his grown autistic son will not be a priority for cops
and prosecutors, the victim’s father, Yoo Joong-sik hires a private
investigator. Things really get complicated when it is revealed the mystery
witness is Ryun-hwa, his son’s arranged wife, an illegal alien from China.
Everyone wants to find her, including the maybe not so morally upright Koo.
Okay,
so we should all be able to accept the notion politicians will do some pretty
reprehensible things to preserve their power by now. However, what makes Idol
so interesting is that it shows how far everybody will go to get what they
want, as well as the lines they just won’t cross. All the major characters in
this film are capable of some pretty extreme actions, but there are also things
they just refuse to do. That isn’t necessarily so for some of the minor
characters, of whom there are arguably too many. Lee has the questionable habit
of introducing new faces very late in the game, just to advance the narrative.
In
a somewhat unconventional turn of events, Han Seok-kyu and Sul Kyung-gu shared
Fantasia’s best actor honors for their respective turns as Koo and Yoo, but it
rather makes sense. Both performances are excellent and there is a weird
symbiotic push-pull dynamic shared by their characters. Koo is the less showy
role, but Han still has moments that genuinely shock and surprise.
Nevertheless, Sul just burns a hole in viewers’ souls with his portrayal of Yoo’s
righteous rage and bitter impotency.
Chun
Woo-hee’s work as Ryun-hwa also perfectly fits with the film’s ambiguous tone,
yo-yoing from femme fatale villainy to frightened vulnerability from scene to
scene and moment to moment. Plus, Yo Seung-mok and Hyun Bong-sik do what
character actors do best, adding grit and color as Yoo’s investigator and the
honest cop working the case.
Idol
is
a tense film fueled by blistering anger at political corruption and social
iniquity, but it has some ragged edges. Motivations are often questionable and
sometimes personalities can change drastically for no clearly established
reason. Nevertheless, its boldness is bracing, like good, strong aftershave.
Recommended for fans of socially conscious thrillers, Idol should have extensive
festival screenings ahead of it, after winning the Cheval Noir at this year’s
Fantasia.
