Psychokinesis
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Year: 2018
Rating: 5.0
Country: Korea
Well, it isn't Train to Busan. Instead of going
the zombie route again, director Yeon Sang-ho goes for a superhero film.
Apparently, the first Korean superhero film which seems almost impossible
when superheroes are everywhere in film. This has a lot of fans going by
reviews that I read, but it honestly felt slight to me. Superheroes are made
to fight super villains - not construction workers and real estate developers.
As evil as they are. In the middle of this is of course the melodrama of
a father and daughter being reconciled. There was that in Train to Busan.
But it isn't zombies after the daughter - just thugs. And he is a superhero
with all sorts of powers to protect her.
Sook-heon (Ryu Seung-ryong) is a low-level
security guard who deserted his family years ago. He enjoys his drinking
and going home to his shabby living space to drop off to sleep. His wife
and grown daughter Roo-mi (Shim Eun-kyung) own a popular fried chicken place
in a small lower-class tight-knit neighborhood. That the developers want.
When they can't buy it, they move in with workers wielding metal batons.
They accidentally kill the mother and Roo-mi calls her father with the news.
He doesn't yet realize that he has gained super powers by drinking spring
water that a comet had hit. Why no one else does, is a mystery. But he first
realizes that he can move a lighter, then a bottle - thinks he can become
a nightclub act - then his daughter is in trouble and he realizes just how
big his powers are. She has organized the neighborhood to resist and the
authorities side with big business of course to move against them. With a
huge force.
I just never felt really connected to the
story or the father-daughter drama. The special effects were great for 20
years ago but not for 2018. And somehow if a person suddenly had the power
to fly, crush cars, move huge objects, toss men 20-feet away with a wave
of his arms, it would be big news world-wide. But it almost seems to be unnoticed.
A local story. Why isn't he Time Man of the Year? I expect more from a superhero
film. At a minimum he should have saved South Korea from nukes.
