Unique cop thrillers are few and far between— the majority of them sticking to the standard textbook elements— and Chang Yoon-hyun’s Some is no exception. It’s full of drug deals gone wrong, high speed car chases, framed cops, mysterious conspiracies and crooked detectives with a little of the supernatural thrown in to boot. But while it makes no outward effort to break out of its genre conventions, the film stands out for being a well-made, solid film that just does nearly everything right.
Police officer Kang Sung-joo is in the middle of an investigation dealing with a missing ten million dollars worth of drugs, a gangster/dealer conspiracy and a huge web tied together by an incriminating piece of evidence that falls into the hands of Seo Yu-jin, a local news reporter. The morning she receives it, Yu-jin begins to have visions and déjà-vu’s for that particular day, as if she’s lived it out before and the fragments of it remain in her memory. At first, she’s flustered as she tries to understand what is going on, but one sudden vision becomes a particular priority: she glimpses a gunshot that will be the death of someone by the end of the day.
Although the script can lapse into generic turns, or insanely confusing scenes at times (especially early on in the film), it is all methodically crafted to a satisfying end. Some forgoes the usual attempts to liven up a cop thriller with an all-star cast and an overload of action, opting instead on a good mystery with twists, character chemistry and a strong, evocative mood. The leads, relative newcomers Go Soo and Song Ji-hyo, embody their roles perfectly and show appealing chemistry that depends less on obligatory romance and more on solid dialogue, character dependencies and motivations. The two of them authentically realize their characters’ distinctive personalities.
It is the attention to its characters that allows Some to get away with the supernatural visions plot device shackled to Yu-jin. It never feels terribly gimmicky because Song Ji-hyo is given plenty of time to express her character’s attempts to cope with the burdensome and daunting task. It’s a definite supplier of the film’s most effect tension— not for villain revelations or any dramatic twists, but for its effects on the relationship between our two stars.
If there is anywhere that the film shows touches of originality, it is in its technical elements as Young-hyun employs vivid, well-frame shots, and a mellow electronica soundtrack to precisely capture an odd and surreal mood. Throughout the film, references are made to the strange weather that day, as half the city is engulfed in rain while the other half is perfectly sunny and it is a strange, impressionable feeling to witness it. Some breaks away from the pack at rare moments like these and also in its very casual integration of technology into the plotting for some interesting turns. For the most part though, it will often feel like another slick rehash of cop thrillers with strong characters—and it should be most satisfying for genre fans looking for something a bit new, but mostly familiar.
Reviewed by Tarun
