In an Ocean's-esque elaborate puzzle plot, an overly fastidious cop takes a fake robbery a little too far. The storytelling is brilliant, both in the script and the direction, calling out ever-prevalent bureaucratic corruption and police incompetency. It's a uniquely hilarious and engrossing take on the hostage-standoff genre that should be so much bigger than it is.
Plot summary
A string of bank robberies sets off a public panic. To appease the residents of the city and fulfill his own ambitions, the newly-appointed chief of police decides to hold an anti-bank robbery drill to demonstrate the effectiveness of the police. He secretly appoints a naïve traffic cop to disguise as a robber, overlooking the fact that the inflexible, by-the-book officer will go all out in accomplishing any assigned mission--even when it's a robbery.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
It's shocking that there isn't a bad American remake of this yet.
Just for fun
Well. While some wry comedies may be subjected to reviewers in need of a new pair of glasses, this reviewer was entertained by both the premise and execution of this film. One need not expect high art or brilliant script, nor production standards exceeding that needed to portray a cop with eccentric integrity faced with a challenge that questions his role in life and as an enforcer of basic values.
So, Do Man meets the new Chief of police assigned to his station in the form of a traffic pattern violator while Do Man is performing his duties as a newly demoted-to traffic cop. Upon unerringly issuing a traffic ticket to said person, Do Man finds himself in a head to head play of wills after being charged by the new chief to act as the bank-robber in a police training simulation intended to quell critics of the departments inability to stop local bank heists.
Little did the new Chief of Police foresee the conviction Do Man would duly bring to bear in order to carry out his assignment. Ooooops!
This is a comedy. The acting is par given the intrinsic cultural subtlety and the scripts plot holes with which the actors were charged to respectively portray and abide. A dead guy driving a bus is simply loose plotting, but contrived for closure. That said, the subtle plot points and the tiny but poignant romance were enough to give this film warmth and value.
Perhaps there could be an INMCDB, ha ha. Some reviewers miss the point in the endeavor to be critics and not observers.
All said, this was an enjoyable film with originality in idea, and as such can be forgiven any flaws in execution as minor.
Very nice and touching fairy tale
I can't remember when for the last time was I so charmed by the movie. Very ingenious script, congratulations to the script writers. Quite dense and, nevertheless, balanced story. As for the direction, I was very surprised to know that this film was a debut work of Ra Hee-Chan. A masterpiece!
And the last thing to mention to explain my feelings better. Not only me, but most Russians are charmed by this film, because the relations between people and police, shown there, are so far from what we observe in our everyday life. Russia has degraded to a full-fledged police state, where the police can kill people and avoid any prosecution. All government structures and judicial system are corrupt and are subject to the negative selection. As a result of this selection, we can only dream about non-criminal policemen and other officials. Presidential elections were heavily rigged (thousands of violations detected),the so-called President refuses to be replaceable. Watching this film, we can hardly imagine any similar behavior of the police and the government - the more reasons to watch this nice film.