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[HanCinema's Film Review] "Chronicles of Evil"

Chang-sik (played by Son Hyun-joo) is a reasonably competent police chief who attains a probably well deserved promotion. Life quickly takes a turn for the weird though, when on the ride home from his celebratory party the taxi driver starts acting really strange. An impulsive decision on Chang-sik's part sets the remainder of "Chronicles of Evil" in motion- how is he to solve this bizarre mystery without somehow implicating himself, and ruining his whole life?

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If the premise sounds familiar it's because this is the exact same plot of last year's "A Hard Day" except with a more sympathetic protagonist. Normally I don't like to attack movies for repeating plots- maybe you haven't seen "A Hard Day", in which case this will all seem fresh. But "Chronicles of Evil" insists, in all its promotional material, on comparing itself to "A Hard Day". And also "Hide and Seek". The latter reference is especially odd, because while "Hide and Seek" is passable entertainment it's hardly the genre standard.

In essence, "Chronicles of Evil" appears to aspire to be a mediocre crime thriller. I guess that's as good a goal as any, and overall the movie succeeds. But this isn't much of an endorsement. If I wanted to watch a depressing high production quality crime thriller "Missing Noir M" would be a much more efficient way to go about it. About the only improvement "Chronicles of Evil" can reasonably offer over a standard episode of "Missing Noir M" is the high concept- which again, was taken straight from "A Hard Day".

"Chronicles of Evil" is so wound up in its own basic genre standards I can't really come up with any criticism more or less harsh than "generally well done". The plot twist that explains the totality of the mystery is predictable- but in a good way. The script definitely has deliberate polish and reasoning throughout, and if Chang-sik weren't so stressed out, it might have occurred to him that only a select group of people could have possibly set up what happened in the taxi cab.

The trouble is that the mystery is pretty much where all the focus lies- there's little if any meaningful characterization. Ma Dong-seok is just playing...basically every role Ma Dong-seok ever plays. The big tough guy. All right, I'm being facetious- he does do other roles every so often, but it's fairly obvious that he was cast here mainly so that everyone would immediately recognize the archetypical role without wasting time on character development.

I'm sure that to some people "Chronicles of Evil" will probably be of some entertainment value. The very fact that OCN is making a pretty penny punching out crime thriller dramas on a regular basis is evidence that demand exists for the genre. But I'm really at a bit of a loss in terms of objective quality. Nothing about this movie is really all that different or innovative. While I can give "Chronicles of Evil" credit for truth in advertising, that's really about the best I can do.

Review by William Schwartz

"Chronicles of Evil" is directed by Baek Woon-hak and features Son Hyun-joo, Ma Dong-seok, Choi Daniel and Park Seo-joon.

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