Review: The Truck


Widowed truck driver Yu Hae-Jin finds out that his beloved seven year-old daughter (Lee Jun-ha) is plagued with a hereditary heart defect and is now in hospital after collapsing from too much physical exertion. She will need expensive heart surgery- $60 000, and the poor, single, working man hasn’t got that kind of cash. He cleans out his savings, borrows from loan sharks, and then a friend tells him about a poker game that he’ll conspire to help him win by signalling one another. He agrees to go along with it, and before you know it, he’s lost all his money, his pal has screwed him over, and in pursuing said scumbag pal, he walks in on a mob boss (Kim Jun-bae) who has just finished murdering a few people. The mob boss agrees to square things with poor Yu Hae-Jin, so long as he agrees to transport the corpses to a remote lake to be dumped. He agrees to do so. Along the way he finds a wrecked police vehicle and several dead bodies. Very much alive is Jin Gu, who claims to be a police officer who was one of several transporting a dangerous serial killer, who is nowhere to be seen. Our hero agrees to give Jin Gu a lift, but soon finds out that this guy isn’t who he claims to be, and he is seated right next to a dangerous psycho, with no way of alerting the authorities (lest they should uncover his load of corpses).



On the surface of things, you could probably say that this 2008 Hyeong-jin Kwon thriller is a mixture of “Roadgames” (Truck driver transporting pigs) and “The Hitcher” (serial killer hitching a ride, messing with his chauffeur with sick games), but ultimately there are only passing similarities to those films. I love “The Hitcher” in particular, moreso than this film actually, but there’s a lot more drama here that wasn’t featured in that streamlined cult classic. This poor guy just wants to save his ailing daughter, and things just keep spiralling out of control for the poor fella. And it serves to give this film an identity of its own (think of it as Murphy’s Law played out on our unfortunate protagonist), it’s really a solid film in its own right. The cute widdle kid certainly helps. It still ranks as a B-movie, but if you think that’s a bad thing, then I pity you.



Terrific performances, especially by Jin Gu as the handsome killer, the impressive (and alarmingly funny) Kim Jun-bae as the violent mob boss, and adorable Lee Jun-ha as the little girl who is cute even when she’s being all stroppy. In fact, it’s a shame she’s not in the film more. Jin Gu isn’t exactly Rutger Hauer (Yu Hae-Jin is certainly an upgrade from C. Thomas Howell, though) but he’s suitably cool and detached, played a true, remorseless sociopath whose sick intentions are only slowly revealed.



Admittedly the film at first looks like it doesn’t know where it’s going, but it’s still good stuff and never boring. Lots of creepy twists and turns and quite bloody at times too. The cinematography by Hwang Dong-guk is damn good stuff, with terrific scenery. Even the rain is made to look beautiful here, and I’m decidedly not a fan of wet weather.



With a screenplay by Hyung-Mo Jang, his is nothing earth-shatteringly innovative, but does every film have to be? Can’t movies just be entertaining genre fun? Well this certainly is. Professionally done all round, and a must for lovers of Asian thrillers and genre movies in general.



Rating: B-

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more