Master

This review may contain spoilers!

This film spends too much time on the business jargon without enough attention to characters. I would give Master a 4/10.

This film managed to create a film around the concept of deception very well, this concept was the driving force behind the film and it was interesting to watch the characters decide who to trust. I especially enjoyed the relationship between Kim Jae-Myung and Park Jang-Goon, the cop and inside man relationship and how the balance of trust shifted throughout the narrative was probably the most intriguing quality to the story. The cinematography was very good, often boasting stylistic choices that made use of the impressive sets, vehicles and lighting.

Lee Byung-Hun, who played President Jin, was incredible as the central antagonist for this film; Byung-Hun brought an open charisma to his role that could turn to a ruthless intensity at a moment's notice. Gang Dong-Won, who played Kim Jae-Myung, really had the rough intensity of the cop who goes off on his own; this was very driven role who you knew would achieve his goal by the end of the feature. Uhm Ji-Won, who played Shin Gemma, was a very blunt and commanding presence in this film; Ji-Won really complimented Dong-Won's tough cop persona. Jin Kyung, who played Kim Eom-Ma, was an intriguing minor antagonist for the film; she really rivaled Byung-Hun's duplicitous character.

However the best performance came from Kim Woo-Bin, who played Park Jang-Goon. This was a character who you never really trusted throughout the film, it was fun to watch as he played both sides but ultimately acted as a force for good. His nervous reactions to tricky situations was played well, it grounded his role and made his ambitions feel more frantic and harder to earn. By the end of the film it's satisfying to watch Woo-Bin lead this role to a fine heroic conclusion.

This film has some agonisingly slow pacing, from the get go you are introduced to a number of hard to digest economic terms and scenarios that take away from the main action and characters within the film; in fact the entire first hour contains more exposition than any other film I've watched recently. I also appreciated how deceitful the characters were but it grew tiresome watching the characters stab each other in the back for the sake of a cheap plot twist. It also didn't help that this film is split into essentially two narratives - the first part of the action in South Korea and the back half in Vietnam, with both setting feeling like two separate narratives i.e. first film followed by sequel. The editing was quite slow, often resorting to drawn out fades which added a negative impact to the pacing. The score for the film was really poorly used, it was very much music made for an action epic but you felt the film was too dull for what was playing.

Oh Dal-Su, who played Hwang Myung-Joon, was introduced far too late into the narrative to be very relevant; his antagonist also gave more of a comedic feel which messed with the tone of the film by this point.