Korean Reviews Reviews

Film Review: A Hard Day (2014) by Kim Seong-hun

Detective Ko Gun-su is a troubled homicide detective. His mother recently died and the Internal Affairs are investigating his department over bribery charges. Furthermore, as he is driving to his mother’s funeral, he runs over a man and because he cannot take any more drama, he puts the body in his trunk and continues his course.

A Hard Day Amazon

Unfortunately, he is stopped by traffic policemen, an encounter that leads to pepper spraying, tasing and eventually slapping. However, his worst idea comes a bit later, when he decides to hide the body in his mother’s casket. Lastly, at one point, he receives a phone call from a man who claims to know everything that happened.

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Kim Seong-hun directs a film that constantly lingers between dark comedy and thriller, succeeding in the portrayal of both and thus creating a highly entertaining picture, where the spectator laughs and at the same time has a constant sense of agony for the protagonist.

The general pace is rapid and is shot in many close-ups, a technique , who plays Gun-su, exploits to the fullest in order to present a character who seems resourceful, but ends up failing every time. Cho Jin-woong, who plays his “enemy”, is also very convincing, emitting cruelness despite his exterior that suggests otherwise. The various fights between the two are magnificent as they are agonizing, with the upper hand constantly changing.

” is a very entertaining film, that stands apart from the plethora of similar productions because it does take itself very seriously

About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

Panagiotis (Panos) Kotzathanasis is a film critic and reviewer, specialized in Asian Cinema. He is the owner and administrator of Asian Movie Pulse, one of the biggest portals dealing with Asian cinema. He is a frequent writer in Hancinema, Taste of Cinema, and his texts can be found in a number of other publications including SIRP in Estonia, Film.sk in Slovakia, Asian Dialogue in the UK, Cinefil in Japan and Filmbuff in India.

Since 2019, he cooperates with Thessaloniki Cinematheque in Greece, curating various tributes to Asian cinema. He has participated, with video recordings and text, on a number of Asian movie releases, for Spectrum, Dekanalog and Error 4444. He has taken part as an expert on the Erasmus+ program, “Asian Cinema Education”, on the Asian Cinema Education International Journalism and Film Criticism Course.

Apart from a member of FIPRESCI and the Greek Cinema Critics Association, he is also a member of NETPAC, the Hellenic Film Academy and the Online Film Critics Association.

  • I wouldn’t say it was great, but it was crazy and entertaining as hell, I can say that for sure. It gets really insane towards the end, too.

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