IDOL
From South Korea, this deliciously twisty neo-noir tracks the bloody fallout that ensues when a politician’s teenage son kills a man in a hit-and-run.
Gearing up for an election, politician Myung-hui (Han Seok-kyu) experiences a devastating setback when his teenage son comes home one night lugging the dead body of a man he’s killed in a hit-and-run. Fearing for his morally upright reputation, Myung-hui encourages the boy to turn himself into the police. But the victim’s hysterical father Joong-sik (Sul Kyung-gu) isn’t happy with the boy’s lenient sentence, and senses that something isn’t quite right about the family’s account of events. Both Myung-hui and Joong-sik conduct investigations into the accident, though they have drastically different motivations for finding to the truth. The victim’s fiancé—an illegal Chinese immigrant named Ryeon-hwa (Chun Woo-hee)—has been missing since the night of the accident and locating her is of vital importance to both men. Soaked with rain and blood, Idol is a fast-paced thriller with a deliriously high body count and copious unexpected twists and turns. Yet in spite of its genre trappings, Idol manages to touch upon deep-rooted political dishonesty, unchecked privilege, and the plight of illegal immigrants in South Korea. It’s a richly entertaining but deeply unnerving portrayal of widespread societal corruption.
CAST: HAN SEOK-KYU, SUL KYUNG-GU, CHUN WOO-HEE, KANG MAL-GEUM
All sales are final. Admission is not guaranteed after scheduled start time.
CLICK HERE to return to the complete 28th Philadelphia Film Festival schedule.