Introduction
Escape Movie Review: Follows the struggles of a North Korean sergeant who is chased by a ruthless major after he defects.
Details
- Genre: Action
- Director: Lee Jong-pil
- Release Date: July 5, 2024 (United States)
- Country of Origin: Korea
- Language: Korean
- Time: 1 hour 34 minutes
- Box office: Gross worldwide $92,450
- Screen Writer: Kwon Sung-hui, Kim Woo-Geun.
⭐ People Reviews ⭐
1. At a quick ninety-four minutes, “Escape,” like our hero, doesn’t take a breather. Director Lee Jong-Pil keeps adding twists to the story until the very end, just when you think Lim is going to get a break. —- Cary Darling
2. This is An exhilarating and taut action thriller Movie. —– Avi Offer
3. A straightforward thriller in the defector genre featuring savage cat-and-mouse games, which are made even more intense by the strong homoerotic overtones between our mouse and other cats. —– Roger Moore
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About: Escape Movie Review: Is Escape Worth Watching?
“Escape,” a high concept South Korean army thriller, runs for a quick ninety-four minutes. It very well could have continued. This intriguing, although incomplete, tale of a North Korean defector who travels to South Korea after ten years of military service has both too much and too little action. An obsessive North Korean National Security official is chasing him, which adds to the tension.
While the contextualizing flashbacks slow down the dramatic pace long enough to leave the audience wondering why there’s not much more or less where they came from, they also contribute something to this otherwise simple chase story.
Escape depicts a North Korean soldier’s absurd journey to South Korea as he defected. The film, which was directed by Lee Jong-pil, has a great sense of momentum as our desperate protagonist faces more challenges and more stakes. That does have significance in a nonstop thriller like this, but it doesn’t take away from how incredibly fabricated this character’s path ends up being.
Our soldier, Sgt. Lim Gyu-nam, is under the dictatorial control of the north and is presently stationed along the Korean Peninsula’s demilitarized zone. After ten years of military service, Gyu-nam is about to be released from the service, but whatever life this place has in store for him will not stand.
“Escape” gets off to a promising start. As he slips out of his barracks in the dark of night, shimmies past a few guards, and drives a few stakes into the Military Demarcation Line, we meet hyper-focused North Korean Sergeant Lim Kyu-nam (Lee Je-hoon). Through a real minefield, Lim charted a safe route, and each night his route became a bit clearer. When he gets back to base, a few reminders of why he needs to take off quickly confront him.
Anxious comrade Kim Dong-hyuk (Hong Xa-bin) reminds Lim that deserters get shot, but family and freedom await in South Korea. Lim is reminded of this by a terrifying video. Kim wants to travel south since she saw Lim at work and said, “My mom’s birthday is tomorrow.” I really do miss her.
They soon get found, and Kim takes the blame. Around that time, Lim’s initial plans are derailed, requiring him to improvise in order to get freedom. Unexpectedly, Koo Kyo-hwan’s unforgiving Field Officer Li Hyun-sang (Koo Kyo-hwan) gives him recognition for holding Kim. Lim is attending an award ceremony, which provides him with an ideal chance to, well.
Rather, he has been skulking out of the barracks and following a trail south during the night. Watchtowers with on-duty.
guards are present. A fence with barbed wire is present. Beyond that lies a minefield, bombs scattered miles apart and hidden beneath the earth.
In the film, Guy-nam is nearing the end of his preparations to cross the formal border between North and South Korea and go on to a new, free life in the neighboring nation.
While Guy-nam’s patience and determination are obvious, Lee only alludes to the painstaking steps his protagonist has taken to reach this point. As we watch him here, marking each explosive he finds with a stick and on his map, testing the earth with bamboo shoots to find the metallic clink of mines, the task feels overwhelming right away.
Screenwriters Kwon Sung-hui and Kim Woo-geun, it seems, aren’t satisfied with this, as they rapidly add more and more complexities to Gyu-nam’s scheme. Actually, they don’t stop until the very last seconds of the story, and by then, The story wears us out because of how much outside material is thrown at the man and because it makes us feel sorry for him because of how much he has to endure to get to where he is.
It’s likely possible to develop a more realistic version of this story, one in which the protagonist, who is seeking freedom, is seen as more than just a pawn in a complex web of obstacles. But it’s a discussion for another day, hopefully when that version gets here.
The hurdles in this film are introduced deftly and, at least, morally. Another soldier named Dong-hyuk (Hong Xa-bin), who wishes to desert with his friend and depart sooner than Guy-nam had initially intended, learns of Guy-nam’s scheme.
Dong-hyuk decides to go it alone when Guy-nam is reluctant to involve his fellow soldier and carry out his escape plan sooner. This causes the base to go into alert, Guy-nam to locate him, and the two men to be charged with desertion, which carries a firing squad death sentence.
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Guy-nam is saved by Hyun-san (Koo Kyo-hwan), a State Security official who was acquainted with the soldier since they were young and persuades everyone that Guy-nam is a hero for stopping a deserter. Guy-nam had to slip out of a dinner in his honor since he was being transported miles and miles from the start of his escape route and Dong-hyuk was going to be put to death.
The consequence is a drawn-out narrative in which Guy-nam is pursued by the State Security officer, who has the support of a whole military division, which somewhat goes against his intention to keep the situation quiet. The action is broken up by cat-and-mouse games. Some of these sequences are cleverly constructed on their own, like the one where Hyun-san uses a map and background noise to determine Guy-nam’s whereabouts without actively taking part in the operation.
Another scene has a terrible irony to it when Guy-nam is forced to re-join his former squad and blend in with the ranks of soldiers as just another face in the crowd.
By the way, the scene has greater impact on the dehumanization of an authoritarian system than a side story about Hyun-san’s past aspirations to play the piano and his desire to conceal his sexual orientation.
When taken as a whole, though, Escape’s plot is just too unbelievable to be true; it depends not just on chance and timing but also—especially in Hyuan-san’s case and especially during the climax—on persons behaving contrary to what is known about them in order to further the interests of the protagonist. We are almost tricked into disregarding such flaws by Lee’s deft orchestration of the action, but not quite.
Kim’s past likewise doesn’t appear very credible, but not because it doesn’t offer enough context for his persona. Kim, on the other hand, frequently feels like an afterthought tucked inside Lim’s otherwise unstable plot, like a pile of napkins used to balance a rickety card table. This is similar to Li and his musical ambitions. If Kim and Li’s performances had been equally captivating, Lim would be more forgiven for being drawn into unexpected and occasionally annoying detours during their moments.
Even with some fast-paced action sequences and dynamic camerawork, the movie’s action scenes frequently feel more staged than directed, which doesn’t help. However, every time someone other than Lim examines or goes through their belongings, “Escape” detracts too much time and effort from Lim’s story. That vague statement presents an intriguing topic for “Escape,” but it is never sufficiently explored to illustrate what it’s like to remain invisible while serving your own country.
