Time Renegades (2016) – Korean Movie Review

The director of My Sassy Girl (2001) is back with his high-concept romantic thriller!...Read More

Time Renegades (시간이탈자) -2016

  • Directed by: Kwak Jae-young (곽재용)
  • Starring: Im Soo-jung (임수정), Lee Jin-wook (이진욱), Jo Jung-suk (조정석), Lee Min-ho (이민호), Jung Jin-young (정진영), Lee Ki-woo (이기우), Jung Woong-in (정웅인), On Joo-wan (온주완), Park A-sung (박아성)
  • The Film: –New Year’s Day 1983: Ji-wan (Jo Jung-suk) is an elementary school teacher who is engaged to marry his girlfriend and colleague Yoon-jeong (Im Soo-jung). One night, he gets stabbed with a knife and loses consciousness.
    –New Year’s Day 2015: Gun-woo (Lee Jin-wook) is a homicide detective who is shot in the streets while chasing down a criminal.With a time interval of 30 years, at the same time, same day, and same hospital, Ji-wan and Gun-woo make a special connection as they both struggle for their lives. Since this day, the two men begin to see each other’s lives through their dreams. Through their connection, Gun-woo gets to see a lot of Ji-wan’s fiancee Yoon-jeong too, and develops an affection for her.Gun-woo is able to use the information he learns from Ji-wan to solve some cold cases his superior Detective Kang (Jung Jin-young) has him working on. He also coincidentally spots a woman named So-eun (Im Soo-jung) who looks exactly like Yoon-jeong who he has been seeing in his dreams…
    When Gun-woo realizes one of the cold cases he needs to file is the murder of Yoon-jeong from 30 years back, Gun-woo and So-eun begin to investigate. At the same time, Ji-wan also shockingly learns of Yoon-jeong’s harrowing  fate through the dream connection…and will do anything to prevent it.Together, through time, Ji-wan and Gun-woo struggle to prevent the death of their loved ones as their cooperation affects both the past and the future. They are Time Renegades!

Review

Director Kwak Jae-young is most widely known for his film My Sassy Girl (2001) which became one of the first romantic comedy films you would hear even the manliest of men wholeheartedly endorse. It has been considered one of the best romantic comedies of the 21st century and even became one of several Korean films from the early 2000s to be remade in Hollywood. His other well known works include The Classic (2003) and the somewhat disappointing Windstruck (2004). Even though director Kwak’s latter films struggled to match the success and appeal of My Sassy Girl, for many fans of Korean cinema, director Kwak was the leader of the pack when it came to on screen romance.

So it is no surprise that Kwak’s latest film, Time Renegades, is also a love story at its heart. It is two love stories in fact, as the film has two timelines running simultaneously and 30 years apart. The film summary above only scratches the surface of the twists and and turns in this time-bending story.

Right from the beginning, Time Renegades establishes the dream connection between Gun-woo (Jo Jung-suk) and Ji-wan (Lee Jin-wook) and things quickly become very supernatural. It feels like a weird mix of Marvels: Agents of ShieldSherlock, and The Twilight Zone. Based on the advertising for the film, it is a bit surprising how fluffy it begins. Most of the paranormal revelations are taken fairly lightheartedly and there are quite a few attempts at humor. Unfortunately, a lot of the jokes fall flat. Nonetheless, the first part of the film follows the usual beats of a superhero origins story as the two men come to grips with their mysterious new power and its potential. By the end of act one, the cast is assembled and the men are ready to use their powers to change the world around them.

The way each of the men’s actions affect the other timeline’s reality is indeed a cool concept. When the murder investigation begins, opportunities arise for a very unique police procedural film. Time Renegades takes a darker turn in its second act as the two men work together to solve the cold cases that appear to be related to the murder of Ji-wan’s fiancee, Yoon-jeong. Director Kwak takes full advantage of the film’s premise here, and has the men working together using every bit of their ability to see both the past and the future through their dreams. While they make many efforts to alter the course of time, you can’t help but shake your head at some of the ridiculousness as the plot twists come across very contrived. There were even some audible chuckles from the audience at certain effects the men’s actions have on reality.

Im Soo-jung plays two separate characters (Yoon-jung in 1983, and So-eun in 2015) and is the motivation for both men’s actions. The world got to know her from director Kim Ji-woon’s masterfully crafted horror tale, A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), and her more recent award-winning performance in All About My Wife (2012). Even with her being more than capable of playing the two different parts and having some shining moments, she feels underused in Time Renegades, where the overly ambitious story and contrived plot points leave the actors with little breathing room. They simply become chess pieces for director Kwak to tell his story; and he has Soo-jung’s character constantly in play and making random moves all over the board.

The film’s final act plays like a straight thriller, with serial killers running wild and body counts piling up. From the film’s romantic beginnings, you may be surprised at this interesting effort at genre blending. The new wave of Korean films from the early 2000s were quite well known for this and director Kwak comes from this background. His 2008 film My Mighty Princess mixed modern romantic comedy settings with classic fantasy martial arts swordplay. But with these two jarring contrasts in Time Renegades, both in mood and style, the film struggles to find harmony ends up feeling like two separate films. As a thriller, the final showdown underwhelms, resembling everything we’ve seen before. But on the romantic side, we get more pleasing results. Director Kwak taps in to his special abilities for charm and sentimentality that wash away any distaste left over from the bloody finale.

Time Renegades lets down in a lot of ways knowing what the director is capable of. The script feels overly crammed and may have worked better episodically as a series. That being said, I can think of worse ways to spend a couple hours. So I recommend Time Renegades as simple entertainment.

Trailer



 

 

Categories
Korean MoviesReview

Tyler is a passionate fan of East Asian cinema, especially South Korean films which he has followed closely for nearly two decades. He started one of the Pacific Northwest's first Korean Cinema Clubs out of the University of Idaho in 2004, where he also spent a year abroad studying Japanese at Nagasaki University of Foreign Languages. Since 2011, Tyler has been living and working in Seoul, South Korea as a freelance English teacher and writer. He also spent one year studying at Sogang University's well-known Korean Language program.
No Comment

Support & Community

Newsletter

Stay updated with the latest news and reviews!

* indicates required

Angel Donations

If you enjoy this content and would like to support our ability to continue to update and increase the quality of our content.

error: Content is protected !!