After his first two features, the thriller “Fatal” and the drama “Entangled”, Korean director Lee Don-ku continues with a blend of both genres titled “Fanfare”. The movie already received critical acclaim and managed to entertain audiences at lat year’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival as well as Seoul Independent Film Festival, a success it truly deserves given its many qualities. The director again proves his skill at using a minimalist setting to full effect, telling a story about loyalty, betrayal and deception in a style reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” and the gangster cinema of British filmmaker Guy Ritchie.
“Fanfare” is screening at Project K – Korean Film Festival Frankfurt
It is late on Halloween Eve and the majority of bars and clubs have already closed down, when J (Im Hwa-yeong) receives a call to meet an important client. In order to pass the time, she goes into one of the last bars still open, an establishment which is half café, half record shop, and manages to evade the flirtations of the barkeeper. However, the evening has other plans for both of them, when two masked men enter the bar, demanding whatever money is left in the register, but as one of them is over-eager he runs into the terrified barkeeper, stabbing him in the event. As the two men take off their masks, Kang-tae (Nam Yeon-woo) and his brother Hee-tae (Park Jong-hwan) decide to take J as their hostage and get rid of the body as soon as possible.
After some discussions about whether to involve another party, Sen (Lee Seung-won), a business acquaintance of Kang-tae with relations to the underworld, arrives and eventually chooses to help the two men, under the condition that he will get Kang-tae’s drug stash when they are finished. Although their problem is seemingly taken care of, the union of the three men is quite uneasy, as all of them follow their own agenda, willing to betray the others, and, meanwhile, J just waits for a moment of them not paying attention to add her contribution to tonight’s bloodshed.
As mentioned before, “Fanfare”, with a few minor exceptions, takes place exclusively in the interior of the bar, adding a sense of claustrophobia and tension from the very first minute. The dim lighting and the use of close-ups further highlights this atmosphere, building up to a violent climax, when all of a sudden violence erupts and the masks come off. Additionally, the colorful, odd and at times quite mysterious characters add to the tone of the narrative, making it even more interesting for the audience to follow the action unfold. Lee Don-ku’s script describes his story, how it develops and the petty quarrels of his characters, presenting it with well-balanced mixture of suspense and gallows humor.
Interestingly, the main protagonist stays mostly in the background while the actual villains shovel their own grave metaphorically. Im Hwa-yeong gives a terrific performance as a woman who remains a mystery for the audience as well as the male character around her, who seem to either ignore or misjudge her. Her performance, in combination with the peripheral approach in terms of storytelling is quite risky, but ends up very convincing, making the final twist even more of a surprise to the viewer.
“Fanfare” is an entertaining and suspenseful blend of thriller and drama, while also containing elements of humor. Lee Don-ku directs an efficient, and well-timed movie which will likely stay with the audience for quite some time and is certainly candidate for a future cult movie.
