THE CHILDE - Mark Reviews Movies

The Childe, Well Go USA

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 29, 2023

The plot of The Childe is little more than an excuse for a series of action sequences, but writer/director Park Hoon-jung knows that, embraces it, and delivers on the film's implicit promise. That the plot itself, which involves a relative innocent becoming caught up in the web of a corrupt business, is fairly clever and the characters surrounding our blank-slate hero are notably nasty give the narrative a bit more heft than we might expect, too.

Our protagonist is Marco (Kang Tae-ju), a man who was born and raised in the Philippines by a single mother, currently suffering from an unspecified medical condition and in need of life-saving surgery. As an amateur boxer and unlucky gambler, Marco is in no financial position to help his mother.

His fortunes seem to turn when Marco is approached by some representatives from South Korea. He had been searching for his absent father, a Korean man who abandoned Marco's mother after getting her pregnant, and these agents have arrived with good news and bad news. The former is that Marco's father, a wealthy businessman, wants to see him and is prepared to pay for the mother's medical costs. The latter is that said father is dying, so Marco needs to leave for South Korea immediately.

Relatively speaking, this is all pretty ordinary. Upon arriving in his father's home country, though, Marco quickly learns that three different parties are after him for reasons to which he is oblivious.

One is Director Han (Kim Kang-woo), the father's eldest son, who is very worried about the legitimacy of his succession to his father's position. He's murderously concerned, in fact, killing a whistleblower and a journalist who are working to expose Han's corruption. What he wants or doesn't want from Marco matters (The story's key revelation is a real stunner), but he's a genuine menace regardless.

A second is Yoon-ju (Go A-ra), who is also after Marco at the behest of a most unlikely handler. Whether she's a threat or an aid to Marco is a mystery.

The third party—and the film's most twistedly compelling figure—is a ruthless, charismatic assassin known only as the Nobleman, played with go-for-broke gusto by Kim Seon-ho. On the plane heading to South Korea, he warns Marco that danger awaits him, but a prologue showing the Nobleman's homicidal disposition and skills put us a bit ahead of the game the guy is playing.

It's an intricate, puzzling network of conflicting motives and goals—but not too much so. After all, Park does want to cut to the chase—literally, in cars, weaving through the streets of a village and making last-second turns on highways, and on foot, through alleyways and across rooftops—and get to the bloody business at hand, such as during an extended standoff/shootout/all-out brawl at the climax. The action of The Childe is dynamically staged and shot, and with this collection of players, it's devious fun, too.

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