Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee, the hulking titan from Train to Busan) stars in the 2018 thriller The Villagers as Ki-Chul, a gym teacher who moves to a small village to accept to accept a job at a local high school, only to find himself at the center of a mystery surrounding the disappearance of a student.
On his arrival, Ki-Chul almost immediately notices several posters reporting a missing girl who is a student at his new school, but upon asking about it the disappearance is downplayed by other teachers and administrators, who dismiss the girl as a wayward teen known to play hookey and disappear from time to time.
Meanwhile on the job front, accepting a combined position as dean and gym teacher sounded like a great opportunity, but it turns out “deanship” boils down to trying to get students and parents to pay overdue fees. He’s like a glorified debt collector, hired to shake down kids for money. The other teachers and administrators offer little respect, and the students view him as a pest.
Taken altogether, he has an uncomfortable situation at the school, and it seems he’s the only adult who actually cares that a student has vanished. But that puts him in a unique position of trust with Yu-jin (Kim Sae-ron, the girl from The Man From Nowhere), who is the missing girl’s best friend and the only student who seems to care that a student has vanished. Yu-jin senses that she is also being stalked, and may be the next to disappear.
The Villagers plays a bit like a folk horror film: an outsider arrives in a small town, only to be confronted by a terrifying mystery, unsavory politics, tight-lipped locals. But what does become evident is that there are elements of organized crime and machine politics at play in the village, not to mention unhelpful cops who seem to be plugged into that machine.
The film definitely has some action and fight scenes – after all, if Ma Dong-seok film doesn’t One-Punch Man anyone with his cannon-arms, what’s even the point? It’s fun seeing him tear a door apart with his bare hands, and occasionally throw down with some bad guys.
But the action isn’t the emphasis of this film, which plays as more of a dark and intriguing thriller, unraveling layers of deceit conspiracy to get to the ultimate heart of the mystery.
The Package
The Villagers is released in Well Go USA’s new MOD (burned) format, packed in a standard blue Elite case
Special Features & Extras
The disc’s only extras are trailers for both The Villagers and other Well Go USA titles.
- The Villagers Trailer (1:31)
- Promotions Trailers (3:59)
- The Old Woman with the Knife (1:25)
- Hidden Face (1:11)
- Yadang: The Snitch (1:22)
A/V Out
Get it at Amazon – The Villagers (Ordinary People) Well Go USA Blu-ray
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