The sale of arms is going down in a hotel
room in Berlin. Some Russians are at the table, it looks
like some Arab cats are on the other side of the table and at
the front of the table is a North Korean, the Hero of the
Republic, Joon-Syeong Pyo (Jung-woo Ha). The South
Koreans, led by their commie hating boss Jeong Jin Soo
(Suk-kyu Han) are clandestinely watching this deal. Then
in the middle of the deal, Israeli Mossad agents bust in and
then people start shooting at each other. Right now I'm
pretty confused about what the heck is going on in this South
Korean action epic 'The Berlin File'. Until they started
shooting at each other. That I got. This will be
the general running theme that I will be dealing with for most
of this films run time.
Joon makes it out to his safe house, after totally kicking the
asses of crapload of worthless South Korean agents, including
the commie hating Jeong. One thing I've learned from
watching this film, if I am to accept this fictional insanity
as the truth, is that North Korean operatives… all of them…
are badass. And South Korean operatives… almost all of
them… are not.
Now the plot of this movie really kicks in, and if there was a
film with a lot of plot, it is 'The Berlin File'. True
enough, I couldn't make heads or tails of the majority of this
plot, but we will trudge through. The North Korean
ambassador informs Joon that the Grand Party is none too happy
with their lousy performance. Joon thinks their lousy
performance is because somebody on the inside is tipping off
the enemy. The ambassador informs Joon that the Grand
Party is sending some backup to clean up their incompetence in
Joon's understudy, the crazy and duplicitous agent Dong
(Seung-beom Ryu). While the plot is still kind of
baffling me, just one look at Agent Dong tells me that this
cat is up to no good.
On the other side of the virtual DMZ, our
commie hating agent Jeong… this is a man who says he doesn't
even make left turns… is trying to find Joon, discover what
the hell is going on and crack the case even though there is
interference from all directions trying to keep this obviously
insane man from doing his job.
The plot gets even thicker when we are introduced to our North
Korean agents pretty wife Jung-Hee (Gianna Jun) who also works
with the ambassador, often tasked with doing some really
unsavory things, and who just might be hiding something from
her detached husband. Not to mention the
American CIA is involved in whatever is going on, that sneaky
Agent Dong is even worse than we thought, there are possible
defections, then Mossad show back up, then let's not forget
the terrorists… it's a mess.
Fortunately, whether you are following this story or have let
it go, eventually it simply devolves into everybody… and I
mean everybody… wanting to kill agent Joon and his pretty wife
who kind of hates him right now. In fact, the
person who would really like to kill him the most, this being
the commie hating agent Jeong, can't kill him because right
now they need each other to kill other people. The enemy
of my enemy is my friend, I guess. Mad action
shall ensue.
Helmed by noted director Seung-Wan Ryoo, I'm thinking that
your ability to observe, compartmentalize, analyze and
mentally categorize everyone and everything that is going on
in at least the first half of his movie will vastly improve
your enjoyment of this movie. Personally, I did a piss
poor job of doing any of those things, so while all of these
various characters were doing all of this talking about all of
this stuff that I'm dead certain was critically important
about what was about to go down in this action movie, most of
it just glazed right over me. At some point during the
film I just decided to try focus on the basics, this being
that agent Dong is bad, agent Joon is torn, his wife is pretty
and agent Jeong hates commies. So while understanding
the complete intricacies that writer / director Seung was
setting up for the viewer will probably make this film a great
one for you, simply clutching to basics keeps it manageable
and still makes it entertaining.
And this entertainment comes from the action sequences which
are really, really impressive. Jung-woo Ha is a very
good actor, but he's also a very good physical actor
considering all of the incredible physical things he had to
pull off to sell us on his character as a complete badass,
which the young man handles superbly. One doesn't need
to understand the plot to enjoy some fine fist fights, car
chases, enough shootouts for two movies, knife fights, gun
fights and a final action sequence which will make you
weep. Or make you think that you are actually watching
an updated version of John Woo's 'The Killer'. Hmmm…
honorable bad guy, cop chasing him like forever, pretty woman
caught in the middle, enemies forced to come together to bring
down somebody they both hate, forging a new found respect for
each other. Now 'The Berlin File' really gets a little
simpler.
While I make no bones that the narrative of 'The Berlin File'
largely baffled me, spy gobbledygook just for spy
gobbledygook's sake, it's still a difficult film not to like
because it is so well crafted, well-acted and has some of the
best action scenes we've seen or probably will see in a while.
