New on digital home video from Well Go USA comes South Korea’s Yadang: The Snitch, a thrilling saga of crime and punishment, and the country’s biggest office hit post-COVID.
Yadang depicts a self-fulfilling symbiosis between crime and law enforcement, in which crime bosses and corrupt prosecutors systematically pin major drug crimes on scapegoats. Expendable lower level gangsters and even innocents are caught in this web and quickly rushed to jail. The bosses evade justice while the prosecutors boost their records with lots of successful arrests. Facilitating these arrests are the street-level arrangers who set up the traps: the snitches.
Into this volatile and disturbing reality come Kang-su (Kang Ha-neul), a chauffeur with a photographic memory who gets framed for possession, and Detective Goo Gwan-hee (Yoo Hae-jin), an ambitious up-and-coming prosecutor who’s aiming for the top. While Kang-su is serving his unjust prison sentence, the detective recognizes both his innocence and his potential, and recruits him to act as a snitch in the prison, setting up other prisoners and reporting back what he learns.
Kang-su’s cooperation earns him a release and a successful partnership is forged, continuing on as he becomes a professional snitch, aiding the detective in their increasingly morally questionable law enforcement tactics. Together the pair encounter a large cast of criminals and cops, good and bad (and mostly inbetween), with different roles to play as events unfold.
I won’t get into plot specifics because it’s more fun to discover it yourself, but suffice it to say that Yadang is a super effective thriller with plentiful action and intrigue, with big twists, some dark paths, unlikely partnerships, a dash of black humor, and maybe a chance at redemption as a group of individuals trampled by the system seek to topple it.
I’m well on the record as a big fan Yoo Hae-jin, a versatile Swiss Army knife of an actor that I’d liken to South Korea’s Steve Buscemi or Willem Dafoe. He’s a big personality with a unique face, who’s perfectly at home playing a goofy sidekick, an empathetic protagonist, or a menacing villain with equal appeal. He’s amazing as always, crafting yet another memorable character.
Yadang is well worth checking out- fans of crime films and Korean action won’t want to miss this.
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Get it at Amazon: Yadang: The Snitch (VOD)
