Soo / Su

[Bewitched240]

Neues aus der koreanischen Racheecke



Soo is in the business of solving problems. When his brother Tae-jin is killed by a gang, he takes his brother’s identity to seek revenge.

The first English review of the grim revenge actioner Su , by ethnic Korean-Japanese filmmaker Choi Yang-il (Yoichi Sai) comes to us via The Korea Herald. According to the reviewer, Su ups the ante of Choi's previous outing, the unrelentingly violent "Blood and Bones" (2004), based on the semi-autobiographical novel "Chi to Hone" by Korean-Japanese author Yang Seok-il, and starring Takeshi Kitano. In Choi's upcoming Korean debut, Ji Jin-hee takes the lead as Tae-su, who, forcibly separated for decades from his twin brother Tae-jin, witnesses his brutal murder just as the two are reunited. Unaware that Tae-jin's brother is a notorious hit-man, the assassin and his mob boss have hell to pay as Tae-su punches, kicks, stabs, shoots and kills in his quest for vengeance and fight for survival. Foregoing the ******* blood-letting familiar to viewers of films like A Bittersweet Life, the director chooses instead to elaborate in excrutiating detail the course of action taken by Tae-su as he settles old and new scores with the gangsters. The film's title, Su ('life' in Korean), is related to the last character of Tae-su's name. Considering the pervasive image of water, Su (whose Korean sound also means 'water') is also concerned about the very essence of life. In some stylistic scenes, director Choi seems to suggest that water cleans not only blood but also the soul - a tormented soul that is trapped in a cycle of guilt and violence. Water's purifying image clearly offers a few droplets of hope; however, Tae-su's animalistic instinct for survival at the expense of other lives points to a disturbingly dark side of what life means for a vengeful spirit. Su opens in Korean theatres March 22nd. (Quelle: twitchfilm)

Website

Trailer

Review

[Yala]

Kommt in absehbarer Zeit von Splendid

[Recon]

Klingt sehr interessant, habe den Film heute Mittag auch auf HanCinema gefunden. Der Trailer sieht auf jeden Fall vielversprechend aus.

http://www.hancinema.net/korean_movie_Soo.php

[BK1979]

Soll sehr brutal sein. Ist zwar am 22.03.2007 in Korea angelaufen, hoffe aber auf eine schnelle Veröffentlichung auf DVD. Da im Moment sowieso die Hollywood Filme in Korea dominieren, bleibt der vielleicht nicht mal lang im Kino.

[mr_burns]

Mit "Blood and Bones" scheint ja Yoichi Sai, dem Director von "Soo" bereits ein guter Film gelungen zu sein.
Hoffentlich gelingt Ihm dies mit Soo auch ! - Bin gespannt.

"Soo"-OFDB-

Der Trailer und die Bilder auf hancinema sehen nicht schlecht aus. Fehlt nur noch eine schöne LE : )

[BK1979]

Habe den Film mal jetzt vorbestellt. Kommt laut dvdfromkorea am 20.06. raus. Mal sehen wie der wird. Kann ja dann ein Review posten, wenn ich den gesehen habe.

[Bewitched240]

Das wäre nett. Bin da nämlich noch soo unentschlossen...

[Recon]

[...] Fehlt nur noch eine schöne LE : )

Auf DVDfromKOREA sieht es aber eher nach einem normalen Amaray Case aus.



Naja, mal abwarten, was BK1979 berichtet, der Film interessiert mich nämlich auch sehr.

[manu]

Soo ist sehr gut, SEHR brutal und wohl der blutigste Koreaner der letzten fünf Jahre.

[Bewitched240]

[Delli Dellmeier]

[so_high82]

Naja, mal abwarten, was BK1979 berichtet, der Film interessiert mich nämlich auch sehr.

Da brauchst du nicht zu warten, da eigentlich schon seit Wochen bekannt ist, daß der Film eher durchwachsen ist.

Review 1 (vom Korea Herald):
Director Choi Yang-il's 'Soo' pulls no punches
Ethnic Korean-Japanese filmmaker Choi Yang-il (Yoichi Sai) does not pull any punches when he describes raw human instinct. A case in point is "Blood and Bones" starring Takeshi Kitano. Based on the semi-autobiographical novel "Chi to Hone" by Korean-Japanese author Yang Seok-il, the award-winning film epitomizes what "relentlessly grim and brutal" violence really means.

"Blood and Bones" follows a straightforward formula (Decade X: Kitano beats people up. Decade Y: Kitano is still beating people up). Choi's latest film "Soo" - and his formal debut work for the Korean cinema industry - opts for a simpler formula: Tae-su (Ji Jin-hee) wipes out his enemies.

"Soo" has all the trappings of a Korean film. Ji Jin-hee plays the central character, or characters, given that he plays twin brothers Tae-su and Tae-jin, and the film is set firmly in Korea. The language is Korean, and there is no sign of a Japanese connection whatsoever. All of this is true when the surface of the film is considered. But deep inside, it's a Japanese revenge film that relies heavily on the fatal edge of daggers, knives and swords. At its core, this is a Choi Yang-il movie that defies all the conventions of today's mainstream Korean filmmaking.

Korean filmmakers are fully aware of the so-called "yuck factor". If the dominant feeling in a movie is perceived as gross or yucky due to the amount of violence, it tends to perform poorly at the box office. Conventional wisdom, therefore, is to seamlessly coordinate violence and style so that audiences pay more attention to what is cool, instead of the blood-letting, on the silver screen. For director Choi, that's grossly inappropriate. He does not want to do some circumlocution in describing the underlying human instinct to survive, or a willingness to kill others for one's own survival.

In "Soo", Tae-su demonstrates what it means to survive and kill. After years of forced separation, he meets with his long-lost twin brother Tae-jin, only to witness his murder. What the assassin and his boss overlook is that the victim's twin brother is a famous hit man.

The story traces back to a distant past when the two twin brothers were barely surviving on the street together. Tae-su stole some cash from a scoundrel at a fish market, but it was his twin brother Tae-jin who got caught and had his chin slashed by a knife in punishment for a crime he didn't commit.

The incident left The Twins separated for decades, with Tae-jin's fate controlled by the brutal gangster leader (Moon Seong-geun). Tae-su, meanwhile, suffered from the traumatic guilt of not being able to rescue his one and only remaining family member from the drug-dealing underworld.

The sense of helplessness, guilt and anger hits its peak when Tae-su sees his twin brother brutally victimized again during their first long-awaited meeting after decades apart. Determined to exact his revenge, Tae-su disguises himself as his twin brother, who was a policeman, and tracks down the mobsters and their leader.

Director Choi spares no blood in fighting scenes that describe the excruciatingly violent course of action that Tae-su undertakes to settle old and new scores with the hoodlums.

Tae-su knows everything about punching, kicking, stabbing, shooting and killing. The most extreme violence involves Tae-su's confrontation with his enemies on his way to the very heart of the mobster's headquarters. When he loses his weapons and has only his bare hands to fight, Tae-su plunges his fingers into an enemy's eye and gouges it out without any hesitation. The scene is messy: screams howl and blood splatters all over the place, with those who are wounded writhing in pain.

The title of the film, "Soo" (meaning 'life' in Korean), is related to the last character of Tae-su's name. Considering the pervasive image of water, "Soo" (whose Korean sound also means 'water') is also concerned about the very essence of life.

In some stylistic scenes, director Choi seems to suggest that water cleans not only blood but also the soul - a tormented soul that is trapped in a cycle of guilt and violence. Water's purifying image clearly offers a few droplets of hope; however, Tae-su's animalistic instinct for survival at the expense of other lives points to a disturbingly dark side of what life means for a vengeful spirit."

Review 2 (von einem User aus einem Ami-Forum):
ACHTUNG SPOILER!!!
"Do not watch this movie....it's one of the worst films I've EVER seen. What the story is is this guy who has a twin brother who he hasn't seen in 19 years. So one day he finds out where he lives. He goes to see him. And when they both see each other, the sappy/corny sad piano music plays in the background while they both look at each other in the eye for like 10 minutes. And then, his brother gets killed. Just like that, dude's dead. There is no chemistry anywhere. So the guy gets pissed and swears revenge, the first thing he does is go to work the next in REPLACING his twin, since they both look the same, no one knows. And he just tries to fool everyone and finds out who is behind everything. This movie is like most Korean action films I've seen, it's either hit or miss. And this just misses big time. I mean, one of the most ridiculous things about this film is how his twin's girlfriend falls for him, they barely had any screen time together, and she just kisses him out of nowhere. This is some Hollywood nonsense right here. I am so dissapointed because the poster and the trailer are both awesome...led me to believe that this was going to be a good movie. Unfortunately it's a joke."

[Peter von Frosta]

Soll ich dir beim Gucken Händchen halten?

[Delli Dellmeier]

Ne lass mal! Ist mir dann doch zu frostig!

[sectionse7en]

Soo ist sehr gut, SEHR brutal und wohl der blutigste Koreaner der letzten fünf Jahre.

das sehe ich nicht ganz so....

richtig ist, das er sehr brutale szenen hat ( ob das SEHR brutal ist sei dahingestellt ) ...

gestern gesehen und muss sagen, dass er in die gleiche Kerbe wie "Bittersweet life" haut. mit einem tick mehr gewalt und blut aber dafür mit weniger rafinesse. an o.g. Titel kommt er nicht ran!

und ich glaube nicht, dass das der blutigste koreanische film der letzten 5 Jahre ist... taegukgi ???!!!!

[manu]

Hmmm,

also ja, er haut etwas in die Kerbe von A BITTERSWEET LIFE aber dabei geht er weitaus kompromissloser zu gange. A BITTERSWEET LIFE, welcher seine Geschichte wirklich raffinierter erzählt, hat mit filmisch gesehen einen Tick besser gefallen (ich liebe den Soundtrack und Heroic Bloodshed, von daher ist es keine Kunst). Doch sind bei SOO die letzten 20 Minuten (hab ihn im Kino gesehen) ein derart übles Blutbad das man sich meiner Meinung darüber streiten kann ob jetzt der oder TAEGUKGI einen größeren Aderlass haben. In TAEGUKGI "sterben schon mal mehr" und er geht auch nicht zimperlich mit seinen Darstellern um, was klar ist bei einem Kiregsfilm der Marke SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Jedenfalls wird es SOO vor allem wegen der Thematik nicht leicht haben bei der FSK und eine ungeschnittene Fassung darf man sich in Deutschland wohl erstmal abschminken können.

My2cents

[sectionse7en]

vielleicht habe ich mich von deinem doch etwas plakativen statement anstacheln lassen....

so wie du jetzt schreibst, kann ich das nur unterschreiben.... und mit der fsk hast du auch recht. aufgrund der thematik braucht Soo einen guten tag bei der prüfung, um ungeschnitten hierzulande erscheinen zu können...

[manu]

[Flek]

hab gerade die "limeted edition" erhalten und die ist mit abstand die schlechteste koreanische le die ich in meinem leben gesehen habe. Warum man so was limeted edition nennt ist mir unbegreiflich.



Scheiß normales Amaray - kein Schuber oder so was - kein Booklet (!) ...nicht einmal nen kleines heft und dan lieblos eine disk reingeknallt. Aussehen tut die LE also schon mal wie diese budget Veröffentlichungen von CJ Entertaiment,.....


aber gut - was sollst - hauptsache der film ist gut ;D

[Delli Dellmeier]

Wenn das jetzt nicht so traurig wäre, würde ich jetzt drüber lachen