April 10, 2008
Seven Days
7 Days = 125 Minutes = Zzz
Seven Days (Won Shin-yeon, 2007) faces the problem most Korean thrillers (really with the exception of the masterful Memories of Murder) face, its not thrilling. Not to say the concept isn't interesting: Ji-yeon (Kim Yun-jin best known to Western viewers as Sun from Lost) is a high-powered attorney who has a high success rate in difficult cases. She has a seven-year old daughter who she rarely sees and is apparently a single mother, so in keeping with the grand Korean tradition of punishing wayward women, you know something bad is going to happen. Well it does. The girl is kidnapped and soon she receives a phone call with one of the more outlandish ransom demands yet put to celluloid: Ji-yeon has a week (hence the title) to prove a convicted murderer not guilty or her daughter will be killed.
To be fair to this film, Ji-yeon is not really punished because she is a single mother or negligent. She is shown to be loving and tender with her daughter despite her busy professional life. The concept is one that could be stupidly entertaining, and I can see why Hollywood snapped up the remake rights in its bid to redo all things Asian while its own creative output remains stagnant. The film falls flat though. The cinematography was handheld, shaky and close-up and derivative of every single thriller that's come out of Korea (again with the exception of Memories of Murder) which itself is a copy of the MTV hyper stylized visuals of American films. The obligatory chase through the alleyways of Seoul scene is annoyingly tinted blue although thankfully they held off on the rain until the very end (you know so they could be original). Even the sound design was flawed, although it could've been the DVD. In some scenes, characters who are in the same room sound like they are speaking their lines from a faulty speaker in the Mariana Trench.
Kim Yun-jin seems to overuse her “what is going on here” and “holy crap what a twist” face that she has perfected from her Lost role. Although to be fair the only film I've ever actually enjoyed with her in it is Shiri and even that wasn't that great. She is definitely not Korea's best actress. All of the actors seem to be phoning in their performances in order to get a paycheck. The fact that this was a trouble shoot seems pretty obvious. The original director was fired over creative differences and it originally starred Kim Sun-ah who left the production soon after the director. The script is a by-the-numbers thriller, including an unnecessary and telegraphed twist at the end that seems to be thrown in in a desperate attempt to make something surprising. Well consider that attempt failed.
The victims presented are uninteresting and are killed essentially because they are drug addicts and outsiders. Angel dust is a hell of a drug. It is always interesting to me when Korean actors portray drug use, with no real basis in reality [Ed. Note: Drugs are REALLY illegal in South Korea], it always ends up looking like they just had a lobotomy or electro-shock therapy intermixed with severe psychotic episodes. There is also a rather convoluted and ridiculous plot involving corruption and cooperation between people with political aspirations and gangsters (shock!). This has been done better and more in-depth in other, far better films. In all this was an inept film that has little to recommend unless you are a huge Kim Yun-jin fan or a Hollywood executive desperate to mine anything for an idea.
