Enemy at the Dead End

Colour, DIGIBETA
South Korea, 2010, 92 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

Is it possible to create a viable thriller with only two main characters who spend most of the time in one room and are barely capable of moving? Starting from this absurd premise, the director created an inspired and superbly suspenseful movie, an original genre experiment whose plentiful black humor brings a touch of objectivity to the undertaking. A paralyzed man lies in a hospital bed and would just as soon die. But after a new patient is assigned to his room, the hero quickly recovers his zest for life and his desire to rehabilitate himself because he realizes that the other man, similarly paralyzed and suffering from amnesia, is the one who murdered his wife. In addition to numerous twists that gradually reveal the adversaries’ common past, the film keeps the audience in suspense via the bedridden hero’s ingenious plans to kill his opponent using hospital equipment. Enemy at the Dead End presents one of the most original genre debuts to come out of the South Korean film industry last year.

About the director

Owen Cho, Kim Sang-hwa (South Korea) are debuting filmmakers, products of the current conditions governing the South Korean film industry. Since the industry crisis, big production companies have been more prudent with their budgets, resulting in a boom for the sector producing mid-range projects, and it has thus become an incubator of new talent. Like numerous other directors, Owen and Kim can expect to be given the chance to shoot a bigger budget movie if their first is a success. The creative duo embody an ideal balance of differing approaches in the film: Owen highlights the motif of memories and their connection with a person’s soul, while Kim emphasizes the genre mix as a catalyst for conveying the essence of a person’s character when it is given free rein in a confined hospital environment.