|
 The
last few years in South Korean cinema have brought us titles like
Broken, Hope, Don’t Cry Mommy, Montage, Commitment, and other films that
played upon the universal fear of seeing children in danger. 2014’s
Guardian joins that list with a bit of twist.
Jeon-mo’s
flower shop is a family affair. His wife, tween-aged daughter and young
son all pitch in, and life is blissfully ordinary. The phone call that
Jeon-mo receives after his little girl fails to return home from school
on time, plunges the family into unimaginable terror. When an anonymous
voice claims to have kidnapped Hee-jeong, Jeon-mo’s only chance to get
his child back is to follow all the kidnapper’s demands, which aren’t as
simple as meeting for an exchange of money for the girl’s release. Jeon-mo’s
panic doesn’t allow him to process the criminal’s occasional odd
utterances as they are on the phone; so he misses clues like the
kidnapper questioning him about his “sins,” or giving away that as he’s
got the frightened father on the run, the villain must be within
eyesight to note Jeon-mo’s location and activities. Jeon-mo also
refuses to call the cops in to help; his previous employment as a
fireman gave him troubling insight to the police force’s slapdash
methods of hostage negotiation. So, without any assistance, Jeon-mo is
at the kidnapper’s mercy, and must obey even when the disembodied voice
commands him to kidnap another child that he will trade for Hee-jeong.
Will this former hero, who once famously saved kindergarteners from a
fiery death, submit to the kidnapper’s deadly cat and mouse game to save
his own child?
As
Guardian starts out, it takes all of three minutes to predict what is
going to happen to this family, and that’s just when director Yoo
Won-sang, flips the script and takes a completely different route. As
Jeon-mo runs this hellish gauntlet that sees him in situations he could
never have imagined, another ordinary dad is simultaneously committing
crimes for the life of his stolen child on the orders of the same
anonymous voice. The film’s exploration of how far a parent will go in
order to save their child takes it to places dark and horrific enough to
make Jeon-mo question everything he is. To this end, Jeon-mo’s
portrayal by Kim Su-hyeon is engrossing and true, as is Lee Joon-hyuk’s
role as the hapless second father, who gives us some chills in his
earliest moments onscreen.
Unfortunately, thrills is the main area where Guardian is lacking.
While those aforementioned performances are compelling, Yoo never quite
builds the tension a script like this needs. The constant change in the
kidnapper’s commands to Jeon-mo become more irritating than
spine-tingling, and the demeanour of the voice on the phone is just
weird, as opposed to menacing. By the second day of strange, tiresome
orders, I would have either called in the cops, or just hung up the
phone and changed my number. The villain is never fully developed and
that’s a problem when he’s at the crux of the story; just knowing his
reasons isn’t enough. Past the quickly-figured twist of the fathers’
parallel dilemmas, the telegraphing of the rest of the action kills any
real mystery. You see the end coming and it doesn’t feel satisfying.
In his first feature, Director Yoo gives us a psychological thriller
that is interesting, but bears precious few thrills. Luckily, he makes
up for those shortcomings with those great actors in the father roles,
and the child actors playing the movie’s two young sons are alternately
adorable and heartwarming.
Guardian’s suspense never simmers past lukewarm, but keeps from going
stone cold, thanks to the engrossing performances from its cast.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
March
31st, 2015
Guardian
screened at New York’s
Asia Society
as
part of the
Korean Cultural Service’s
“Fathers on Screen" series.
© 2006-2022 The Diva Review.com
|
