No Mercy

Days from retirement, the forensic scientist Kang Min-ho receives a dismembered body. The killer is caught quickly and confesses. That is where the problem starts: the man wanted to be caught, and he has the doctor's daughter. Kim Hyoung-jun directed. Seol Kyung-gu plays Kang, Ryoo Seung-bum the killer. The structure inverts the classic thriller: the question of who did it closes in the first half, and the rest goes to why. The forensic scenes are detailed and unpleasant; the film softens none of it. The balance between Ryoo Seung-bum's calm, smiling killer and Seol Kyung-gu's doctor steadily losing control is what carries it. The motive revealed at the end moves the story away from personal revenge, and that moment became the most argued-over part of the film. It belongs to the hard vein of Korean thrillers around 2010. Who it is for: viewers who like dark Korean crime films. Who it is not for: anyone unprepared for autopsy and violence.