PSYCHOKINESIS, the super-heroes of the corner of the street – Review

Netflix does not always in the coup. This week, PSYCHOKINESIS Sang-ho Yeon made a arrival of the most discrete on the platform. This discretion would betray the fact that the producer of the Last Train to Busan has a serious blow to soft ?

On paper, we can compare PSYCHOKINESIS to It is called Jeeg Robot. In the south Korean film as in Italian, a poor coward and selfish acquires accidentally superhuman powers and becomes the super-hero local. It is also for the two movies to play on the mixture between the moments of bravery that calls the figure super-heroic, and the offsets comedy that involves the context in which this figure appears. Here, Seok-hyeon, the protagonist, uses his powers of telekinesis (manipulation of matter at a distance) to be closer to his daughter, Roo-mi, in the face of an organization véreuse determined to shave his restaurant. Yes, the context in which the super-hero is clearly in the air a long time, because it is a ZAD (zone to defend) and that the film’s purpose is, precisely, the need of incarnation, and the de facto media to advance a cause, especially when it comes to the struggle of the earthen pot against the iron pot.

The trouble is that this subject bears in itself its own limit. It has the force to show us that the cause of the sentence to interest the media, the authorities and public opinion, to force us to remember that it boils down to a fifteen traders at the end of a street, the film underlines its continuing lack of scale. Then of course, this context is used to create a contrast between the super-powers of Seok-hyeon and the social reality, not really glamorous and spectacular. But this situation is circumscribed by the narrative on the rails clear and to prevent it from deviating to a choice unexpected.

We can only regret the evolution of the protagonist that determines the trajectory that is too expected, and too wise in the story. Presented as an anti-hero not too sympathetic, there is a change of mindset as soon as his powers appear and close immediately of his daughter, after, however, having disappeared from her life for years. The father unworthy becomes too quickly a man respectable, involved in the cause of zadistes, and its progress towards the status of a super-hero can, therefore, be carried out without too much difficulty. After seeing the weaknesses of the character in the first fifteen minutes of the film (her self-centeredness, his alcoholism, his irresponsibility), we are surprised that Sang-ho Yeon has not more put to use these elements to put into play the heroic journey of his character. As to the physical evolution of Seok-hyeon, one can not say that it is gentle in its effects, since again its potential is dramatically shown in the first half of the movie, preventing the viewer to believe that the super-hero goes above and beyond in the second half.

If PSYCHOKINESIS is unskilful in the conduct of his narrative, he could, however, surprise us in his narrative, and its appropriation of the genres and registers that it seeks to entwine. We like to precisely the genre cinema Korean when he plays on the outs tones, however in this case, the film is on the whole the aspect of a comedy, and when he wants to be serious, seems to be too sententious. We are anxiously waiting for that to happen the grotesque, unfortunately, we must often be content with the ridiculous. Just listen to the music, to appreciate the cacophony that causes the passage in review of the various moods of the film. Has a melody on the piano as irritating it wants to be melodramatic, takes over the rhythmic clumsy that underscore the action scenes.

We perceive what interested Sang-ho Yeon in this story of the relationship between father/daughter. The idea of a man of fifty years should make superhuman efforts to rise to the height of his valuable girl of twenty years was a basis conducive to a comedy moving. What’s more, basking in the phenomenal success of Last Train to Busan, the filmmaker had at his disposal substantial technical means, and good special effects to ensure that the spectacular nature of the film. But despite a few visual ideas sympathetic, PSYCHOKINESIS sins by his lack of foolishness and bad management of the rhythm, which is strange from a director who has earned his fame two years ago, thanks to a film running at a fast pace.

Arkham

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