[HanCinema's Film Review] "Nothing Lost"

Detective Choi (played by Kim Byung-ok) is trying to determine what happened to a kidnapped girl. Min-seong (played by Ji Dae-han) has just gotten out of prison and is making a point of violently attacking everyone he meets at very slight provocation. These two men don't actually have anything to do with each other. Yes, there are moments when they meet, and talk, but nothing important ever comes of it. Really that could be the tagline of the movie overall.

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As much as I dislike spoilers, in this case, they're a warning- nothing actually gets resolved in this movie. We don't find out what happened to the kidnapped girl, and it's also never really made clear who the people are that Min-seong keeps attacking, or for that matter why Min-seong is attacking anyone in the first place. Why does he evenwant all this money anyway? Min-seong's lifestyle isn't exactly high maintenance.

This essential frustration is what underlines most of "Nothing Lost"- it's just a large series of questions and conflicts with no resolution, and I guess this is supposed to be a metaphor for how in life there's never really any answers to the big questions? That's all well and good, but when I go to a movie I expect there to at least have been some point to it. Detective Choi doesn't run into obstacles for most of the movie, and when he does, they're never really explained.

And really, if the point of the movie is that we can't know everything, how does Min-seong keep managing to run into the exact right people he needs to meet to move his plot forward right up until the moment he doesn't? Min-seong's investigative technique is never really explained, and even as presented it never really works. Apparently nobody in the world of "Nothing Lost" bothers to check who's outside before letting them in, even when they're engaged in blatantly illegal activities.

The only thing I could call a positive point in the film's favor is the violence- assuming you think that's a positive. Personally, I consider the various scenes where Min-seong's brutalizes people to be...well...pointless is one word for it, but it's also just really unpleasant. "Nothing Lost" is so determined not to provide context for anything that what we end up with is a series of stranger who nearly get beaten to death just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That really isn't my idea of fun.

The basic underlying philosophical message of "Nothing Lost" might have been interesting if there was any apparent reason for it, but much like the movie's noir-inspired palette, it's mainly just window-dressing. This is a dark grim world where nothing ever really changes the status quo because nobody cares. Unfortunately the effect also seeps into the audience, resulting in a meandering film with almost no redeeming qualities. It's just a bunch of pieces of style thrown in haphazardly. The title may be "Nothing Lost", but it would be more accurate to say this is a film where watching it means nothing will be gained.

This review was written by William Schwartz as a part of HanCinema's PiFan (Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival) coverage.

"Nothing Lost" is directed by Kim Seung-hyuk and features Kim Byung-ok, Ji Dae-han, Kang Sung-ho and Park No-shik.