“Holy crabcakes! This is good Korean wu-xia! Asian Cinema Drifter’s handsome and intelligent reviewer was right!” - You after watching Arahan.
It’s true! Having recently discovered the exclamation point and Korea’s most promising action maestro, I must emphasize my excitement! Ryu Seung-wan has cracked the mystery and discovered the complicated and tricky secret that has long eluded many other action filmmakers: he shows the action.
He’s not covering it up with quick Bourne-style editing, tacky Volcano “only watchable if you’re” High special effects or a cameraman from the Parkinson’s Society of Cinematographers. No–his actors can actually be seen fighting! With their own hands and faces! And when combined with the high production value and selective influences from Hong Kong Cinema, Arahan bodes well for the future of Korean cinema to help fill that wide gap left open in the martial arts genre.
The story follows a whiny man-child cop, Sang-hwan (Ryu Seung-beom), who gets knocked out in a botched attempt to stop a robbery and then awakens in a school run by the five remaining members of a group of martial artists called the Seven Masters. They reveal to him that the world subtly operates on chi energy–anyone from construction workers to old ladies unconsciously use it their daily routines–and with the proper training, one can harness their chi to grant themselves strength, ESP, the ability to levitate and many more talents whenever the plot requires it. Unfortunately, ESP and levitation is so totally lame in this fast-paced modern world that the seven masters can’t get any business.
And apparently, Sang-hwan, a man who does not know how to properly use stairs, drink tea or even walk without running into a large object, has so much chi that the masters are practically begging to train him. He refuses at first, but eventually accepts–partly because he gets beaten up and humiliated by gangsters, partly because he wants to be able to use a “palm blast” to send a gust of wind under women’s skirts, and partly because Wi-jin (Yoon So-yi), a girl who just walked out of a shampoo commercial, is the head master’s (Ahn Sung-kee) daughter.
So while Sang-hwan trains with the masters and the icy Wi-jin, on the other side of town, a crazy old man (Jung Doo-hung) with the powers to make people’s insides explode and to kill birds by just standing in their general vicinity is accidentally released at a construction site. He trades his old age for a pawn shop owner’s youth (he wasn’t a very good pawn shop owner) and then goes on a rampage, trying to find a vague, all-powerful... thing called Arahan–a power that the seven masters have been guarding from him for years.
By taking very familiar wu-xia and martial arts cliches and transplanting them to the modern world, Ryu Seung-wan is able to self-consciously tell a simple, entertaining story that walks that fine Sam Raimi line between campiness and sincerity. The two qualities bolster rather than diminish each other by subverting cliches in often funny ways and then embracing them. Training montages occur both in the typical dojo and in ridiculous modern locations like the subway or public baths. The classic wu-xia trope of setting a fight on a lake gets shifted to a huge fountain in the middle of the city. Men growl and scream in such excess that rocks rise from the ground, glass shatters from their chi and shirts rip off to fly across the room. In case you are wondering, this is awesome. Mainly because Ryu and his villain, Jung, (who doubles up as the action choreographer) have the kinetic swordplay and hand-to-hand combat sequences to back it up.
Sure, there are still a few minor missteps–jokes occasionally fall flat, logic is sometimes ignored in the plot (true to Hong Kong conventions) and Sang-hwan easily becomes the most annoying person in the world (and he is somehow expected to reach enlightenment by the end of the movie? Never knew it was that simple.) It’s almost enough to start rooting for the villain, who by the way, really doesn’t seem too evil since he just wants the power of Arahan to restore order in an authoritarian way, as opposed to the seven masters who prefer nature and democracy and rainbows. Then again, perhaps South Korean audiences have a different perspective, living directly south of a dictatorship for 50 years.
And though this movie, like every South Korean film, can vaguely be tied to the country’s relationship with North Korea, Arahan’s message can also be seen as a call for filmmakers to find their own way to revitalize the martial arts genre. While Hong Kong cinema has been a huge influence around the world, it’s no longer king. Ryuhei Kitamura proved it in Japan with Versus. Prachya Pinkaew proved it in Thailand with Ong-Bak. And now Ryu Seung-wan with a proper budget, has delivered his own uniquely Korean take. With the right training and talent, any country can do it. We can all access our inner chi. We’re all special. Isn’t that adorable?
Reviewed by Tarun
