QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Se-jong (Lee Hyo-je) is a very timid and weak high school student. The sadistic Hyosang and his thugs bully him relentlessly. The dehumanisation is merciless. Tactics range from the more infantile (pouring liquid down his shirt in the middle of a lesson, or the occasional homophobic slur) to the more extreme (beating him to a pulp, with a sharp Stanley blade always to hand), or even the culinary (a very peculiar milk torture scene). These young man are so cruel and ruthless that not even their poor school teaches dares to mess with them. Let alone our defenceless protagonist.

His unenviable predicament takes a turn for the worse after police find his Filipino friend Jin-soo (Jung Ji-hoon) dead, just outside his own house. They think that Se-jong may have pushed him off the building, with phone messages confirming that the two interacted briefly before the untimely death. Se-jong becomes infuriated, and then panics. “My life is a living hell”, he puts it succinctly. How could anyone doubt his innocence? After all, he’s a good guy with a big heart. Jins-soo’s mother even gave him a Filipino amulet called anting-anting as a token of their friendship.

So Se-jong reenacts the past 24 hours in his head in loop format, every single time with a different outcome. We watch Jon-soo falls to his death several times, with a little twist on each occasion. This is a familiar narrative device, used to excellent results in movie classics such The Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1994) and Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1999). Sang Beom-koo’s 2024 creation is a lot less effective. The result here is silly and muddled.

Instead of nicely round, The Loop is uneven and disjointed. It is only natural that the story should not return to the same place, as each loop is intended to bring about a different denouement. The problem is that these narrative layers barely communicate, instead competing with one another. It is often impossible to determine the chronology, the narrative and the dialectical function of each scene. Some of this confusion is presumably intentional, mirroring Se-jong’s frenzied state-of-mind. Sadly, most of the attempts at storytelling inventiveness fall flat on their face. Much like Jin-soo’s lifeless body on the pavement.

The social commentary is pervasive, if a little anodyne. A padded white jacket gets repeatedly stolen, in a symbol of consumerism. The bullying itself is a criticism of class oppression. And the Filipino family reminds Koreans that prejudice is deeply ingrained in their culture (they are ordered: “go back to where you came from!”).

The other issue is that the story is so full of cliches, and the characters just so exaggerated that instead of captivating they irritate viewers. Jin-soo is a poor Filipino immigrant. Heartless loan sharks violently persecute his debt-ridden family. His father father is alcoholic and abusive. Se-jong has the sad-and-miserable-loser expression permanently printed on his face. The bad boys (and the occasional female accomplice) are super bad: they laugh maniacally while smoking cigarettes and beating the two good guys to a pulp. In one of the final scenes, Se-jong and Jin-soo cry out so loud together that they almost convulse. That’s not moving. That’s cringey.

The final resolution is predictable and lame. Just guess what is it that our weak and vulnerable victim of shocking violence uses as a corrector of injustice? Jesus wept!

The Loop just premiered in the Official Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.