Despite its large ensemble, “The Quiz Show Scandal” is not a release which feels entirely overcrowded. It may be constantly frenetic, shifting between numerous characters and stories at a relentless pace, but there is still a resolute enough air of succinctness throughout its runtime. Thus, although it was anything but a box office hit upon its release, this pacey comedy has more than enough endearing qualities to ensure an enjoyable watch.
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In the beginning, most of the film is centred around introducing the audience to the meaty array of personalities on show, all of whom end up meeting each other in a police station after a four-car collision. Together, the four groups of people try and pit themselves against each other in a meaningless blame game of who did the most damage to the sole fatality of the pile-up, with each passing the buck to someone else in hyperbolic fashion. Eventually, though, the arguments fizzle out, when the tech-savvy college student Do Ji-yong (Lee Ji-young) stumbles upon the answer to the final question of a famously hard quiz show, one which would earn the victor $1.3 million, after scanning through a USB belonging to the deceased victim of the crash. Quickly, a silence befalls the group, the death is classed as a suicide, the traffic police set everyone free, and a sinister ulterior motive begins to linger in the background.
That motive, of course, is money. All of the people who were crammed in the police station and witnessed the unveiling of the all-important question are potential winners of a previously unclaimed, hefty prize fund, and consequently have the chance to change their lives if they are smart enough. As a result, the hijinks begin, and from policemen to hitmen, everyone studies as hard as they can to weasel their way onto the show's next instalment, their minds evidently driven by the bounty.
It is the first half of the film in which Jang Jin's narrative truly excels, with his relentlessly funny set-pieces always delivering, and the plot moving forward at a jauntily brisk pace. Nothing in the opening sections takes itself too seriously, and the overarching silliness adds to the quirky charm presented to the viewer. The excellent script and sharp-witted dialogue certainly help in that regard, but the colourful characters who, thanks to being well acted, imbue each scene with a smile-raising joviality play as much of a key role as anything else. Without them, certain aspects, such as the charismatically dastardly Do-yeop (Kim Su-ro) and his attempts to make his right-hand man fleetingly intelligent by bribing professors, simply would not work as well.
With that being said, when the movie begins to head towards its climax, a lot of the previously engaging humour is replaced by pseudo-intensity in the form of a loosely framed crime backdrop. Aside from a hilarious monologue on food delivery drivers, Jang fails to stick the landing in his ambitiously written apex, with a pervading feeling that he is in over his head. It is not disastrous by any means, but the direction is too obvious to the viewer, and the focus on the manipulative television host is nowhere near as inventive as some of the earlier plot points.
As briefly touched on earlier, though, one of the main highlights of “The Quiz Show Scandal” lies in the acting. Not one member of the ensemble fails to pull their weight, and all play an equally integral role in elevating the vibrant, occasionally flamboyant writing. Unsurprisingly, Ryoo Seung-ryong stands out as Sang-do, a generally useless father who strives to earn the respect of his family, whilst the likes of Ryu Deok-hwan and Kim Won-hae add excellent colour as a law-defying deliveryman and languid traffic warden respectively.
On the technical side of things, cinematographer Kim Joon-young does an exemplar job with the buoyant gameshow set, affording it a true-to-life realism and peppy backdrop. The lensing throughout is also a triumph, with the right amount of space given to the large quiz show backdrop, and a real astuteness displayed when using close-ups on the characters in integral moments.
In conclusion, “The Quiz Show Scandal” is a universally accessible comedy about materialism which never fails in making its audience laugh, but would have benefitted from avoiding its flaccid regression into a flimsily crime-based finale.
