Old School Crime Bosses Spar in New World

Cops and criminals—they're all the same! So says South Korean writer-turned-director Park Hoon-jung, again, with New World, which like his last screenplay, I Saw the Devil, embraces a rather tired two-sides-of-the-same-coin moral equation. When a corporate crime boss is killed, ambitious would-be successors Jung (Hwang Jung-min) and Lee (Park Sung-woong) square off for the boardroom throne, all without knowing that thorn-in-their side chief inspector Kang (Oldboy's Choi Min-sik) plans to manipulate this power transition via his longtime undercover mole, Jung's right-hand man Ja-sung (Lee Jung-jae). Nonstop chatter in which Jung, Lee, and Kang threaten each other is weighed down by the bluntness of Park's dialogue, and his intrigue-laden narrative's efforts to prop up crooks and drag down cops to the same level—culminating with a twist that finally compels Ja-sung to "choose a side"—feels strained and didactic. An excessively bloody sequence that finds Jung battling five knife-wielding assassins in a cramped elevator is the only moment of intensity. The rest of Park's direction is sleek and assured, but lacking the dynamism that might help energize a film that—its title notwithstanding—comes off as dully old-school.

Trailer

Details

New World
Written and directed by Park Hoon-jung
Well Go USA
Opens March 22, AMC Empire 25

Related Content

• 2012's New York Asian Film Festival: A Pop Explosion
  June 27, 2012
• The Last Stand
  January 16, 2013
• Shootout at Wadala Can't Shake Its Vile Lead
  May 8, 2013
• 10 Movies to Watch in 2013
  January 2, 2013
• Summer Film Guide: Rooftop Films and Spaghetti Westerns
  May 23, 2012

More About

• Lee Jung-jae
• Choi Min-sik
• Oldboy
• I Saw the Devil
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

Follow @VoiceFilmClub