At first, I wasn’t too exited about
The Quiz Show Scandal
despite the fact that it is a recent effort from one of my favorite Korean
filmmakers. There has been very little buzz surrounding it, which is strange
for a Jang Jin film. I cannot express my delight as the film unspooled and
grabbed me from the opening minutes. It is a wonderful ensemble piece stuffed
with sparkling dialogue and surely one of the funniest Korean films of the last
few years.
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| The Quiz Show |
It is often the case that while Korean thrillers, horrors, and certain romance films make the leap into foreign territories, comedies have
a little more trouble accomplishing this. There are certainly some films with
elements of humor that have crossed over, such as Save the Green Planet (2003)
and The Host (2006) but few outright comedies have managed this feat. The
obvious reason for this is a language barrier or a cultural gap. You can’t
really laugh at a joke on a subject of which you know nothing about. Korean
comedies often suffer from this, at least from a foreigner’s perspective. Those
comedies that can be understood by westerners are often simplistic and not
always the most shining examples of the genre, the Marrying the Mafia and My Wife Is a
Gangster series come to mind.
The more sophisticated the comedy the more likely
it is to go over our heads. Jang Jin’s films have definitely suffered from this
from time to time due to the fact that he has such a keen wit and is so
articulate. He has both those things in spades, but in Korean, which means that some
elements may fall by the wayside. But every so often there is a film that breaks through that
is both intelligent and jaw-droppingly hilarious. Lee Hae-joon did it with
Castaway on the Moon (2009), Jang Jin did it with his script for Going By the
Book (2007) and he’s now done it again with The Quiz Show Scandal.
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| Jeong Jae-yeong in a great cameo |
Like in his previous films, his ever-inventive scripts are
brought to life by the excellent ensemble casts he surrounds himself with. Ryoo
Seung-yong, Kim Soo-ro, Song Yeong-chang, Kim Byeong-ok, Lee Moon-so, and Im
Won-hee are only some of standouts in the stellar cast, which is supplemented
by uproarious cameos from Shin Ha-gyun and Jeong Jae-yeong as well as Jang
himself.
While it may not have the political rhetoric of
Good Morning
President (2009), the North-South rapprochement themes of
Welcome to Dongmakgol
(2005), the criticism of the media of
Murder, Take One (2005) or the indictment
of authority of
Going By the Book,
The Quiz Show Scandal uses a clever premise
and razor-sharp dialogue as it light-heartedly explores what it means to be
intelligent.
After a few opening scenes which loosely give us an idea of
the characters that populate the mosaic script, they are all thrown together
into a police station for the better part of 30 minutes of screen time. A woman
has been run over and they are all somehow involved but they don’t know
eachother yet. Most of this extended sequence does absolutely nothing to
advance the narrative but it brilliantly shows us who these characters are.
Suddenly we are given a piece of information, the woman’s USB stick features
the answer to the 30th and final question of a very difficult TV
quiz show, no one has answered it before and the rolling jackpot is enormous.
All our variegated protagonists need to do is get to that 30th
question. What follows isn’t surprising but due to its dialogue and characters,
it feels like a much more substantial film than it ought to.
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| Arguing over toy cars |
The comedy is truly top notch and I think that anyone could
appreciate it. Some gems include the banner to a depression group that reads
“We’re not depressed, we’re just less exited than everyone else”, and the
pedantic argument that stems from which model of toy car the characters are
being represented with as the police try to reconstruct the scene of the accident
at the precinct. Another great bit in the opening scenes, which could only come
from the mind of Jang Jin is when a pair of gangsters, who are torturing and
preparing to kill someone, argue about the provenance of a quote, which the
first identifies as Pavarotti while the latter corrects him by pointing out
that it was from Goethe’s Faust.
Without spoiling anything else I would urge you to
immediately seek out this wonderful film, it is definitely one of Jang’s best.
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