Crime films have been one of the reasons Korean cinema holds the place it does in international cinema, with the country having essentially perfected the genre, even if the abundance of such titles has resulted in some subpar titles recently. Park Young-ju tries a different approach, based on a real case of a dry cleaner worker taking on a syndicate dealing with phone scams in 2015, which allows her to add a comedic element to the whole thing, while, quite interestingly, also presenting the side of the people actually doing the scamming.
After losing her laundry store to a fire incident, single mom of two kids Duk-hee receives a call from a bank offering a generous upfront loan, so she takes it right away. If that was not enough, she keeps making payments for various reasons, until she finds out that she has become the victim of a voice phishing scheme. Devastated, she reports to the police the whole thing, but she is met with mockery and her case is quickly dismissed. Not willing to give up, Duk-hee decides to investigate on her own, with the help of two colleagues, and eventually even gets a break in the face of Jae-min, a young man who has essentially been enslaved by the syndicate to work on the phone scams. Soon, however, she gets involved in a case that seems to be much more dangerous than she and her friends could fathom
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Park Young-ju directs a film that unfolds in three axes, one being dramatic, one comedic, and one concerning the real-life crime story which is the base of the story. In that prism, one thing becomes quite evident, quite quickly in “Citizen of a Kind”. When the movie moves more towards comedy, the quality quickly drops, even if there are some pieces that are quite funny. Apart from this, however, it is easy to say that the combination of the three works quite well, particularly in terms of entertainment.
The drama is definitely the best aspect here. Starting with the shock Duk-hee experiences when she realizes she was scammed, continuing with the way her and her children’s situation deteriorates after that, and concluding with the absolutely horrifying conditions the people who are forced to make the phone calls experience, the whole approach here is rather impactful. At the same time, it allows for a full analysis of the whole phone scam concept, highlighting that there are victims on both sides. The fact that the callers might even have it worse than the swindled is a rather shocking aspect here, that definitely adds to the drama element, as much as on the crime aspect.
As such, the comments about the system and the police’s inability to deal with these scams, that were quite prevalent at the time, are quite intense here, and mirrored in Detective Park, who is presented in a rather negative way, essentially mirroring the whole force. Park somewhat exonerates him in the end, but the fact about the critique remains.
There is one scene that definitely stands out though, and that is the ‘battle’ in the end, which is presented in such brutal realism that one can only stare in awe at what is happening. Both Ra Mi-ran as Duk-hee and Lee Moo-saeng as the villain of the story are outstanding here, cementing the best performances in the movie. In general, the acting is on a very high level, with Yeom Hye-ran as Chinese-speaking Bo-ram and Gong Myeong as Jae-min being equal standouts, the former in comedy and the latter in drama and tension.
“Citizen of Kind” is a rather entertaining film to watch, which would have been much better, though, if the comedy aspect was toned down.
