Around the same time that South Korea emerged as a global economic force in the early 1990s as it went about the process of shaking off the gloom from decades of authoritarian oppression, the film industry began to see a lot of changes. Large corporations began to fund some projects and film production rapidly modernized. The quality and budgets of films rose. Another aspect of the industry that began to take shape was the star system. Given the low market share of Korean films at that point, there weren’t many household names in the local film industry since the larger public would not have been aware of the films much less the stars. As the 1990s progressed however, a few names became known to local film viewers. Park Joon-hoon and Han Suk-kyu were some of the first major Korean stars. To this day they are still popular draws at the box office but then again the rebirth of the industry didn’t happen that long ago.
In the late 1990s, when the domestic film market exploded,
the star system blew up along with it.
Very quickly, talent and management agencies began to hoard and
commodify promising talent, employing strategies pioneered by the Hollywood
star system and its domineering power brokers in the talent management
sector. Soon the hallyu phenomenon
added to this escalation of the importance of above the line talent and it was
at this point that things began to spiral out of control. Budgets for Korean films were quite low
but agents had driven up the prices of top talent so production costs for the
industry began to soar. Filmmakers
were not happy with the direction that the industry was taking but the grip
that these agencies held over the entertainment industry proved very strong.
Around the peak of the Korean film industry’s dominance of
the box office in the middle of the last decade there began to be a change in
star power. Up until then
recognizable actors had proven big draws for audiences but there appeal was
starting to diminish. As the
industry saw a dramatic fall in 2007 there was a shift in how projects were
designed. Budgets were too high
and had to be slashed, and since top actors weren’t backing up their hefty fees
with solid return on investment there weren’t deemed as essential as once was
the case.
At the present time even more consternation has been
expressed over the bankability of big stars. Last year there were a number of big flops, some, like Sector 7 and My Way, were huge blockbusters that generated little interest but
there were a number of mid-level productions, more modest in their ambition,
which were mainly relying on the recognizability of their main stars. One of these was Hindsight, starring Song Kang-ho, another was Countdown, which featured the promising pairing of Jeong Jae-yeong
and Jeon Do-yeon.
Jeong Jae-yeong is the king of deadpan, I dare you to watch Going By the Book (2007), in which he expresses not a single emotion, without falling off your seat laughing. Over the years he has amassed an impressive array of credits, which have included many recalcitrant gangsters and stoic antiheroes. In time he has developed into one of Korea’s most dependable leading men and of late has moved audiences to laughter and tears with award-winning roles in Castaway on the Moon (2009) and Moss (2010).
Jeon Do-yeon may very well be the most versatile actress in
Korea. Starting off in TV, she got
her start in movies with the successful romance films The Contact (1997) and A
Promise (1998) before moving onto different roles such as a gangster’s girlfriend
in Ryoo Seung-wan’s No Blood No Tears
(2002) and a diffident mother in Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine (2007) for which she won Best Actress at Cannes.
In Countdown, Jeong plays Gun-ho, an efficient and stoic debt collector who discovers that he has liver cancer. Five years ago his son died and his organs were donated to a number of people whom Gun-ho now approaches in the hopes of getting a liver transplant. One of these beneficiaries is Ha-yeon, a con artist who is currently in jail. She is about to be released and agrees to the operation on the condition that he finds someone for her, the man responsible for her incarceration.
The film boasts a terrific opening but it doesn’t take long
for the melodrama signals to turn on.
The death of Jeong’s character’s son, who was afflicted with Down
Syndrome, weighs heavily on him.
So much so that the memory of the loss has been suppressed by some sort
of ‘han’-induced amnesia. It
should also be mentioned that his parents are disabled. All this comes within the first 10
minutes.
Sadly, Jeong’s deadpan demeanor in Countdown comes off as glum and a little sleepy while Jeon admirably throws herself into a role that is underwritten and scarcely worthy of her talent. It’s rather unfortunate that this is the case, especially since the film started out so well. The problem with the film is that despite all its promise it is critically lacking in originality. The set pieces are for the most part banal or rehashed car chases and standoffs. The photography is competent but the editing sometimes leaves much to be desired.
The film is not as witty as it attempts to be and as a
result it is far too dry and glum to ever be funny. The local overcast weather is a also detriment in this film
which by all rights should be colorful and exuberant, they should have played
with lighting, locations and wardrobe more to counteract this. It’s a sad state of affairs when the
most interesting location is a Lotte department store.
Another issue is that the weight of inevitability looms over the narrative as we are just waiting for the backstory, the seeds of which have already been planted in the opening minutes, to kick in and hijack the narrative. It’s a long time coming and though it is predictably melancholy and cloying, thankfully it works rather well. This is due in large part to Jeong, who is afforded the opportunity to add more depth to his character and performance in these final stages.
At the end of the day, Countdown
is a mediocre film with a humdrum narrative which happens to feature two big
stars. It’s like a song that
thinks it’s cool and savvy, replete with self-assured lo-fi beats and
interspersed instrumental bursts, but is really just elevator music. I am a big fan of both Jeong Jae-yeong
and Jeon Do-yeon but now I will need to count down until they both return in
better films.
★★★☆☆
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