Wild Card opens with a blistering little chase between a cop and his target across fields, parks and the like. The narration is funny, the characters immediately likable and the acting very enjoyable.
The title’s meaning passes me by, like words coming from someone I have no interest in listening to. I assumed it referred to some sort of secret weapon, or trick. Even in the film, there is reference made to the body being a secret weapon, but Wild Card itself is a little ambiguous.
What the film seems to be about is the South Korean police’s inability to manage crime by the books. The cops here beat their suspects; torturing them is pretty typical and a given. All the rules are broken, in order to ensure life in the district is quite and peaceful. The police, however, are under investigation after an accusation of excessive force with the use of a gun.
Kim Yu-Jin (director) seems to go to great pains to emphasize that the police cannot use guns that have been issued, due to the complexity in the law. The guns themselves serve no purpose, and for its value, may as well be thrown since they cannot fire them unless they follow the rules. For cops that continually knock seven shades out of their suspects, this is a hard and difficult fact to grasp for the characters, and in the end makes little difference – they’re already beat the hell out of them with whatever they can lay their hands on, made conclusive by one of the final scenes.
The nemesis comes in the form of four, rather pathetic, punks. This is perhaps one of my biggest disappointments; this rather vilified idea that the disaffected youth go out killing people for the hell of it or for money. The commentary at points, is quite incredible, which essentially paint everything in black and white. Life isn’t as simple as that, and the simple picture painted by the script is pretty narrow minded, adding a rather flat impression of the depth of the characters. Aside from that, the four bad guys are pretty rubbish. They’re just not convincing, feeling more like television rejects than a cast for a commercial Korean film.
Wild Card has problems in the sense that Korea is currently a hotbed of film releases, and it makes it even more difficult for each release to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack. Unless your film has a fresh, unique, original turn to it, then you can expect it to be feature on the least most wanted lists. To that end, Wild Card is pretty much a generic Korean cop movie that has been done before, time and time again. There is nothing distinctive about the film.
There are some good moments, and the fighting is pretty good when it does happen. I guess that the lack of anything happening is half the problem. There is no build up, no real background to the characters. Although there is an enjoyable camaraderie between the cops, as well as the bad guys, it’s all rather familiar. The acting is great throughout, unfortunately the the characters just don’t seem to do the actors justice.
Times are difficult when it comes to making a Korean cop film now, what with the plethora arriving every year, it’s becoming more difficult not to be seen with the “me too” crowd. There is nothing particularly wrong with Wild Card; as I said the acting is good, there are some humourous scenes, some decent fight scenes and it is fairly enjoyable.
The unfortunate thing is that that there are so many films above the quality of Wild Card, that makes it seem all the more average. Technically, cinematically, and in terms of script, the whole thing feels decidedly underwhelming and tiring. There are scenes that seem to drag on endlessly about nothing in particular. The human drama is pretty terrible, and not at all sympathetic; as well as cliché upon cliché of familiar soft bastards for bad guys, and you’ve got yourself something which feels 50% accomplished.
Verdict: There are finer examples of Korean cop films out there, and Wild Card is not one of them. One for the bargain basement