No.IDE OF VIPERS
Genre: ironic noir-pulp
Director: Kim Yong-hoon. With Jeon Do-yeon, Jung Woo-sung, Bae Seong-woo, Yoon Yeo-jeong, Shin Hyeon-Bin, Jeong Man-sik, Jin Kyung, Jung Ga-ram.
Mixing the mocking gaze of the Coen brothers with the pulp taste cleared by Tarantino (and not only), the Korean director adapts a Japanese novel that takes its cue from finding a bag full of money in a sauna cabinet.
The janitor who found her would like to solve the financial problems of her very poor family but many others have also set their sights on that money: a customs officer up to his neck in debt to a gangster, the owner of a nightclub, the entraîneuse who works in that club and would like to kill her violent husband with the help of a client, the gangster who lends money to choke …
Divided into chapters that dismantle the linearity of events, this noir sui generis tells a world that revolves around moneycapable of conditioning any type of affective form.
Sometimes the twists and turns risk complicating the plot too much, but the description of the port city where the events take place, with its miserable apartments and its squalid and promiscuous premises hits the mark.
A scene from Kim Yong-hoon’s “Vipers’ Nest” (photo by Cho Won Jin).
And the moral that emerges is that, cynical and suited to the times, which ends up abdicating any value and pursuing only the opportunity of easy gain. Assuming that something remains in your hand.
For those who love noir in an oriental sauce
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