A little broad and flat-looking and at times perplexing in tone, often inelegantly lurching between a serious and dangerous political conspiracy thriller and a sillier action-melodrama about an ensemble of reporters literally fighting for the freedom of press. But the way this turns the real-life attempted assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-hee in 1974 into an exaggeratedly stylized and cathartically rousing procedural that challenges the official government story is close enough to Korean JFK that I had a good time. Right down to the way it uses black-and-white flashbacks and shoots its shadowy KCIA and argues the “lone gunman” theory simply doesn’t add up. It also has a mid-film chase scene ripped straight from Se7en.Further discussion on ep 451 of my podcast SLEAZOIDS, as part of our TIFF26 coverage.
