Secret Reunion

Han-gyu works for national intelligence. There is an assassination in Seoul; a team from the north kills a defector and the operation falls apart. Han-gyu loses his job over it. Ji-won is a member of that team from the north; because the operation is counted a failure he is abandoned too and stays in the south. Six years pass. Han-gyu runs a detective agency that traces workers without papers. Ji-won works on a building site. They meet. Each knows who the other is and each pretends not to. Han-gyu gives him work. They begin working together. Jang Hoon directs. Song Kang-ho plays Han-gyu and Gang Dong-won plays Ji-won. It is a Korean production. It took a strong result at the Korean box office and was among the most watched productions of its year. The tension it builds is not espionage; it is that each hides what he knows and that this continues in every scene. As the narrative proceeds the genre changes; it starts as a spy film and turns into a story of friendship. The character Song Kang-ho plays is not a hero; he is broke, disorganised and opportunistic. Its best sections are the everyday scenes of the two of them working together. Its limit is register; the passages between comedy and tension are sometimes abrupt and the ending too soft. Who it is for: viewers who like Korean thrillers and Song Kang-ho. Who it is not for: the political ground is simplified, it runs long, and the mixture of genres is not for everyone.