Dong Hyuk is a lowlife street thug who's going nowhere in his life. One day he's abducted by a group of gangsters, and while being held captive, he has to undergo classes and training. While being held for a very long time, Hyuk tries to escape several times but always fail miserably and has to suffers the consequences. He thinks he's being trained to become a member of the crime syndicate, but he's actually being trained to become a police officer and later a homicide detective. Only thing though is that the people who are behind his training need him not to only uphold the normal law, but to execute their own view on the law as well.
Mr. Socrates is a nice looking Korean flick that makes you think of Infernal Affairs and Korean movies Public Enemy and Oldboy, as it is quite similar in certain places. It's first and most a crime movie with some clever twists, but it also features elements of drama and action and a big doze of humour to lighten things up a bit every now and then. The movie deals with different kinds of corruption and the similarities between police and gangsters with street thug Dong Hyuk trapped in the middle of it all.
Dong Hyuk leads a bad kind of life full of crime and violence, but suddenly he finds himself kidnapped and has to undergo some sort of training. He refuses at first, but soon learns that it hurts a lot to go against the kidnappers will. Eventually he becomes a police officer and seems very satisfied with the fact that he's now doing something with his life. Soon after he is promoted to be a homicide detective, and everything seems to go well until the people behind his training wants something back from him.
 
Going from being a criminal to becoming a police officer, Dong Hyuk goes through a lot of changes throughout the movie, and becomes a better person with the way he thinks and acts the further the movie goes. He is a pretty likable character and it's interesting and fun to see him go through these changes and become a whole different person. It's well done, well acted as has a lot of humour baked into the whole thing.
There are many scenes with a lot of violence in them, and when I say many I truly mean many. People get beaten by baseball bats I don't know how many times, and overall, there's just a lot of violence constantly going on. Although, it's not so bad to watch, it's kinda realistic but not realistic enough to make you feel anything really. And since the movie features a lot of humour, it makes it a bit easier to watch as well.
While being an entertaining and action-packed movie it still have a lot of flaws, some that are easy to ignore and some that are not. At least it's fast-paced, has a pretty interesting story and some likable characters, but with an ending that did not quite deliver and was something of a let-down. Nothing great but might still be worth a look if you're into Korean cinema.
Back to Asian Review Archive
|
ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Mi-seu-teo So-keu-ra-te-seu
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Choi Jin-won
WRITING CREDITS: Choi Jin-won
GENRE: Crime
CAST: Shin-il Kang, Rae-won Kim, Jong-hyeok Lee
COUNTRY: South Korea
RUNTIME: 109 min
RATING: 5/10
Mr. Socrates Website/IMDB Click here
Mr. Socrates Trailer Click here
|
