Intimate Enemies (2015) – Korean Movie Review

INTIMATE ENEMIES (나의 절친 악당들)

• Directed by: Im Sang-soo
• Starring: Ryoo Seung-bum (류승범), Go Joon-hee (고준희), Ryu Hyun-kyung (류현경), Samuel Okyere, Yang Ik-joon (양익준), Kim Eung-soo (김응수), Kim Hyung-gyu (김형규), Jung Won-joong (정원중), Youn Yuh-jung (윤여정), Kim Joo-hyuk (김주혁)
• Synopsis: Intimate Enemies is about a group of people who stumble upon a lot of money, but then are hunted by criminals who are looking for it.

The Good

• Ryu Seung Beom is one of those actors that has a lot of charm regardless of the role. He can be goofy and then snap to very serious in a blink of an eye, and he can read terrible lines with enough conviction that you actually believe his character. Although there are times where he is very cartoony, he walks a fine line and reels in an interesting performance.
• One of my biggest pet peeves in movies is when an actor or actress tries so hard to be sexy and cool, all I can do is sigh and wait for the next scene. Go Joon Hee’s character is actually sexy and cool in this movie. She has an incredible amount in charisma and plays a bit of an odd ball character. She doesn’t try to act tough, and she’s not doing typical cool girl movie tropes.
• Aside from the acting, this movie is trying to be different from the majority of Korean films out right now, which is refreshing.

The Bad

• The story is a bit convoluted. It’s all over the place and has needless twists. If only they just made this a simple heist film with the very interesting characters, I think it would’ve been a winner.
• The director is trying so hard to be cool, but it doesn’t make any sense.  There are random slow motion sections like a guy walking in normal pace and then out of nowhere he’s in slow motion for about five seconds.
• The characters will do a lot of things for the sake of being cool, but again it doesn’t make sense for the character to do those things. Here’s a little spoiler, but it doesn’t ruin the movie: A guy peaks his head out the doorway and Go Joon Hee’s character is doing some weird “funny” dance and flipping the guy off, but how did she know when the guy would peak his head out the door? Also, there’s a bigger flaw in that scene that I won’t mention.

• These main characters are so supposed to be “bad” people. The Korean title itself refers to the main characters as bad people or villains. But, they don’t really do anything that extreme. It seems really tame, and there are scenes where they are supposed to be going crazy spending their money, but they drink one bottle of champagne. To me, I would think if they wanted to capture what the movie is really supposed to be, there should be some Jordan Belfort extremes here.
• Finally, there’s a lot of random unnecessary played out scenes.

The Weird (not bad, just odd observations)

• Go Joon Hee plays a horny tow truck driver who has a soft spot for giving the middle finger. So this girl …
  … lives in a crappy shack of a house and drives a tow truck with “F*** Me” painted on it. In the world of movies, anything is possible I guess.

• I realized the black actor, Sam Okyere, is from a very popular Korean talk show “Non-Summit,” where they talk about Korean culture. He’s also an ambassador for seaweed.

Bottom Line: This movie is unique in Korea for its characters, but the problem with the story and direction takes away from the charisma of the actors.

Rated: 3/5. I’d rent this just on the acting alone and the fact that it is different.