This year’s Cannes Film Festival has got a few treats for those who enjoy thrillers. Along with Jim Mickle’s twisty tale of revenge, Cold in July the Korean film, A Hard Day will be part of the festival’s Director’s Fortnight lineup. Directed by Kim Seong-hun, A Hard Day stars Lee Sun-kyun as a man who takes some…odd measures to cover up a crime.
On the way back from his mother’s funeral, special crimes detective Gun-su gets into an accident, killing a man instantly. In order to cover up his crime, he hides the body inside his mother’s coffin, with her inside. A few days later, Gun-su’s crime pops up on the police database and his partner is heading up the case. Gun-su feels distressed as his partner slowly uncovers more details of the accident. To make things worse, a witness to the accident approaches Gun-su by threatening his life.
Korean films – especially psychological thrillers – have gained some traction in the western world during the past decade. Park Chan-wook’s award winner, Oldboy was recently remade by Spike Lee – though Lee’s version probably won’t be winning very many awards. I Saw the Devil had its premiere at the 2011 Sundance film festival, and played at numerous festivals in North America and Europe to generally great reviews, and its director, Kim Ji-woon later became the director of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s comeback film, The Last Stand. Choi Min-sik, the star of Oldboy and I Saw the Devil is now acting opposite Scarlet Johansson in Luc Besson’s Lucy. If everything goes well for A Hard Day, who knows, maybe it will get a critically maligned American remake in a few years.
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