Ma Dong-seok had of course been working in the Korean film industry for more than a decade, playing bit parts and side characters, when in 2016 his star suddenly saw rise with his very popular and praised performance in the very successful “Train to Busan”. In general, 2016 was a great year for South Korean cinema and surrounded by the success, both domestically and internationally, of local productions was yet another Ma Dong-seok feature that went under people's radar, debutant director Lee Seong-tae's thriller “Derailed”.
“Derailed” is available from Echelon Studios and can be watched for free on Tubi
Jin-il and Bong-gil are two runaway teenage friends who along with their girlfriends Ga-young and Min-kyung live a life of petty crime, getting money any which way they can just so they can have a hot meal and a warm bed to sleep in at night. Despite their efforts, they're still naive and get taken advantage of by seasoned criminals. Against the boys' wishes, the two girls decide to run a prostitution scam one night but get more than what they bargained for when gangster Song Hyung-suk turns up, having no other interest but to enlist Ga-young in his underage prostitution racket. Before the night is over, Jin-il ends up in the gangster's debt, with Ga-young as collateral and finds himself having to come up with a large sum of money to free Ga-young. Meanwhile, Seong-hoon, a figure from Jin-il and Ga-young's past is also looking for them to settle a score.
Where Japanese cinema excels in showing the delinquency of youth, its Korean counterpart doesn't often portray the same, leaving its youth and especially teenagers represented mostly in narratives about bullying or lack of direction. This makes “Derailed” a welcome change, showing its lead teenage characters as runaways, with no adult supervision, doing rather despicable things in order to make a quick buck. There are no good guys in Lee Seong-tae's script, and even its leads are unlikeable for the most part. In fact, if it were not for SHINee's Choi Min-ho in an excellent turn as Jin-il, one wouldn't feel an ounce of sympathy for the characters. The actor, in only his second onscreen appearance and first leading role, brings a certain seriousness in his performance that anchors the role just on the right side of the personable scale. Watch out especially for the scene where he breaks down in a dark alley. Given the subject matter, the script does tend to lean more towards the cynical side, almost excessively so, but it never veers off into implausible territory. Lee Seong-tae's is a dog-eat-dog world and only the fittest will survive here.
Lee takes some time for some pointed messages about the cause of one's actions and how one always has to be responsible for every decision taken, good and bad, but ultimately the narrative revels in the bleak situations its characters find themselves in, taking one bad decision after another. In that sense, it accurately represents a section of the youth, living only in the present, never pondering the results of their actions or dwelling on what's happened, even if their past comes to haunt them time and again. This results in some detailed character arcs, particularly that of Jin-il and Ga-young, even if the other two friends are sidelined for a part of the runtime, which is kept at a brisk 91 minutes despite filling as much story as possible in that short time. It is to the credit of Kim Gyun-jin's editing that the story never feels overwhelming or sped up, with each progression happening very organically, whereas Ji Seung-woo's cinematography, having to operate mostly in dark scenes, utilises tropes seen in Korean thrillers effectively.
The character arc of Ma Dong-seok as Hyung-suk deserves special mention. Starting off as this gangster that acts all nice and shows no malice, besides wanting to make teenage Ga-young a prostitute of course, he becomes the punching machine we know and love at the flick of a switch the moment Jin-il and Bong-gil break into the room. His gangster persona which is on full display for the majority of runtime disappears the moment he reaches home to his wife and daughter. We've seen the beefy actor show his muscles off often but this is a rare showcase where he gets to flex his dramatic muscles too and he does so just as well. His changing dynamic with Seong-hoon is an excellent example of the same, as is his work near the climax. Seong-hoon, on the other hand, is presented in a rather cliched good-looking bad guy manner by Kim Jae-young.
“Train to Busan” may have received all the accolades of the two in 2016, but “Derailed” features arguably the better Ma Dong-seok performance in the year, which helps make it a very enjoyable thriller. Bolstered by a genuinely appreciable turn from Choi Min-ho and relevant themes not often seen in South Korean mainstream cinema, Lee Seong-tae's debut ends up being a pleasantly enjoyable thriller.
