NIGHT IN PARADISE: The Legacy of Yakuza Eiga
NetflixThe only full-length movie representing Korea in 2020 edition, Park Hoon-jung’s latest effort Night in Paradise (RR: Nak Won Eul Bam) premiered in Venice Film Festival out of competition, though it could have well made it to the podium if only the selection committee weren’t so picky in their criteria. In fact, despite a fair share of gunplay and high-speed chase that may make purists of arthouse cinema turn up their nose, it is indeed a work of art in that it exploits gangster movie tradition – both that of Korean ggan-pae and of Japanese yakuza – in order to ultimately subvert its canon, by setting forward a blatant refutation of the supposed ‘honor’ of criminal organisations as so far depicted on the silver screen, alongside an unprecedentedly independent female archetype and a hybrid form of entertainment, comprising both Korean cultural specificity for the script and adherence to American blockbusters’ standards for visual effects.
The plot is, unsurprisingly, that of many other stories of fall from grace. Right-hand man of local branch boss Tae-gu (Eom Tae-gu) has achieved a fairly high position within the organisation, granting himself enough money to provide for his sister and nephew. But when both are killed in a car crash, apparently ordered by a rival faction, descent into hell begins. After the cold-blooded murder of the supposed executors, Tae-gu is off to Jeju island, where a former gang member will provide shelter until things cool down in Seoul. Upon his arrival, he’s greeted by foul-mouthed Jae-yeon (Jeon Yeo-bin), a badass girl suffering from a terminal disease. But soon enough, they sense that behind Tae-gu’s forced vacation is something fishy . . .
As one would expect from a movie that is bound to hit the box office after its release on the domestic market, Night in Paradise does well to capitalise on the appeal of its cast, starring some familiar faces from contemporary star system, such as Eom Tae-gu, despicable snitch and quisling Hashimoto from Kim Jee-woon’s The Age of Shadows, and female counterpart Jeon Yeo-bin, K-Drama regular risen to new glory thanks to Netflix series Vincenzo and Glitch, plus some old timers like Cha Seung-won as the main villain, which stands out as the most stereotypical yet most relatable character.
In gangster movies, and specifically when you’ve got to make ends meet once the movie is out – let us not forget that Park set up the whole thing by means of his own production company Goldmoon Film – cliches are a must, in order not to disappoint the plethora of die-hard fans of the genre that make up the bulk of early ticket buyers, or Netlfix users, that would spread the word among the larger casual audience. By using the framework drafted by His Majesty Paul Schrader, whose obsession with yakuza eiga eventually brought him to classify all of their recurring patterns – some might even remember reading that 1974 issue of ‘Film Comment’ magazine – we might come across more than a few.
First and foremost: the quest for revenge. No gangster movie would ever see the light of day if not for bloodlust and retribution because of someone who crossed the line. That line can take many shapes, but is most likely a code of honor of some sort – keep in mind that yakuza eiga are basically an offspring of jidaigeki, in which the ‘way of the samurai’ has been turned into the ‘way of the thug’ – whose violation implies an unforgivable loss to, or of, someone whose life the gangster used to value more than his own, just like a venerable leader or a beloved relative. The whole Kinji Fukusaku’s series, Battle(s) without Honor or Humanity, revolves around local overlords stepping on each other’s’ toes, while their henchmen get inevitably dragged down into a circle of violence aimed at restoring oyabun’s besmirched reputation).
Second: the awareness that there is no return for the one who chooses to walk the path of vengeance, no matter how righteous it might be. Already marginalised by society because of his affiliation with the underworld, the (anti)hero is ready to sever his last bond with this life, proving more eagerly prone to embrace death than to face dishonor. Needless to say, he will sell his skin dearly, carefully planning each step so as to send as many as possible to hell before engaging in the final killing spree, just like loyal yet betrayed Tetsu (Watari Tetsuya) does in Suzuki Seijun’s Tokyo Drifter before returning to Tokyo and settle the score with the rival gang that prevented him from building a decent life.
As a consequence, any love story or sentimental sub-plot that may have developed before or after the unfortunate event that started it all, is doomed to a tragic demise – with hitman Hanada shooting his suicidal mistress in Suzuki’s Branded to Kill being a quite notorious exemplum of said pattern. That is also likely to be coupled with a love-suicide, or a hopeless kill-em-all sortie into the lion’s den, which is precisely what Jae-yeon performs before taking her own life. Still, if one takes a closer look at some of the subtleties of Park’s script and mise-en-scène, it becomes clear that he did way more than just paying homage to an old-fashioned – if the ‘70s can be regarded as such – movie genre out of nostalgia.
Just consider the setting in the first place. In fact, despite beginning among the towering skyline of capital city Seoul, Tae-gu’s drama mainly unfolds in Jeju, an idyllic, paradise-like – hence the title – tourist spot that becomes utterly deserted off-season. Along the lines of Takeshi Kitano’s anti-spectacular representation of Okinawa in Sonatine – whose closing scene is overtly quoted in Jae-yeon’s suicide – Park consistently refrains from long takes on gleaming beaches or close-ups of tropical flora. Instead, he opts for empty-background long shots that stress the characters’ loneliness and inability to communicate, while hinting at the downsides of the islanders’ livelihood; e.g., lack of public transport, inefficient healthcare, economic dependency on the mainland. Indeed, such level of introspection is where Night in Paradise does depart from tradition. Tae-gu and Jae-yon almost seem to have their own philosophical stance on death, which is the very glue holding their relationship together: Unable to escape their fate, they will eventually find a common ground in the self-realisation that Jeju will not only be their prison – as the natural conformation of the island itself would suggest already – but also their grave.
Alongside that, is a minor yet not negligible detail: firearms. It might come as no surprise to the average gangster movie enjoyer, but it is not that self-evident if one thinks of the strict regulations on gun-carrying in force in Korea.
More than being a simple hallmark of East-Asian feature films, the reason for local mobs usually resorting to cold steel or empty-hand melee is that getting your hands on a rifle is extremely hard, even if you are acquainted with a fence. Thus, in order to provide a semblance of realism, Korean and Japanese directors most often prefer crowd fighting – sometimes adding a dash of martial arts stunts – to gang shooting, which also contributes to lowering productions costs, since a good pretend gun and related special effects may turn out to be more expensive than a real one. For his part, Park appears to gladly give away that realistic vibe, dismissing messiness in favor of neater, fast-paced combat sequences that are arguably more enjoyable to an international audience, even more so after the John Wick franchise set new standards for competitors outside of the US. Luckily enough, Korean action movies are second to no one either, as Park must have known already when looking for inspiration, with Ryoo Seung-wan being his main reference.
Again, guns are the real star of the perfectly executed final bloodbath, which owes to Jae-yon’s blind hatred as much as to her gunslinger skills. In doing so, she is the one to actually accomplish what her lover started, bringing about a role reversal from damsel in distress – if that ever was her case – to avenging angel that breaks away from commonplace.
In fact, even though it is not hard to find an extensive filmography on lethal ladies among the ranks of grindhouse movies – e.g., undisputed icon of Japanese exploitation wave Kaji Meiko – they seldom, if ever, take the lead in gangster stories, where they act as protegee or partner in crime at the very most. Far from being a statement of female empowerment, Night in Paradise still never happens to overshadow its heroine, entitling her to bring down the curtain on the abusive, male-centered hierarchy lying at the core of Tae-gu’s former criminal enterprise – as well as of part of Korean society, we might well assume.
On a deeper level, such annihilation could be interpreted as an extreme consequence of generational clash, where youngsters – namely, the Jae-yon/Tae-gu couple – have no other choice but to wipe out the establishment – the gang superstructure – in order to make their voices heard. Again, youth oppression is a common theme of gangster movies, whose political overtone is deeply rooted in actual social phenomena starting no earlier than WWII aftermath. As for the Japanese case, yakuza could swell its ranks by recruiting war orphans among the smoking ruins of Tokyo and other industrial cities, building upon the already bequeathed militaristic education from Shōwa Age, which had made children easy to manipulate while hardly questioning authority. As a result, from Kurosawa’s Drunken Angel onwards, young gangsters have often been characterised as walking contradictions: They swore allegiance to a creed predicating the survival of the eldest to the expenses of the fittest, yet that is the only foothold preventing them from falling into the uncertainties of the amoral, classist and coldly efficient ‘New Japan’.
That’s a different story for South Korea, where the ggan-pae took advantage of the gray areas willfully overlooked by the American administration rather than openly challenging its primacy, as the Japanese used to do instead.
After 1953, crooks below the 38th parallel could benefit from no substantial competition from the outside, thus being able to build a night-life empire ranging from betting parlors to prostitution rings. Unlike Japan, though, since the events of the June Struggle that brought to the deposition of Gen. Chun, Korean government has taken a harder line on organized crime, especially after acknowledging the connivance of Seoul-based gangs in police operations against democratic activists. Except when it comes to fiction, ggan-pae is therefore basely regarded by Korean public opinion, nor is its traffic tolerated by national laws, forbidding gang entrepreneurship and affiliation alike.
Coming back to where we started, Jae-yon and Tae-gu – both orphans – were not deprived of their parents by some foreign superpower in a full-fledged conflict. Simpler yet, they lost their family due to some other guys they were told to trust, who were supposed to be kind of ‘family’ as well. Changing the game from the inside too, as Tae-gu naively attempts, appears to be an impossible task. No debt of honor then stands in the way of Jae-yon when she resolves to spill the elders’ blood: They are but a bunch of white [collar] trash, a remnant of the military authoritarianism that gives no moral relief in exchange for its abuses. Speculations aside, it is hard to say where the movie would have ended up without her, whose climax paves the way for the anticipated yet long-awaited bitter end. Speaking of bitter ends, there is one last issue that deserves some attention, as it is essential to any yakuza eiga: That would be the giri (duty) / ninjō (humanity) dichotomy. In simpler words, it means that whether the yakuza is determined to stand up for his loved ones (ninjō) or for the reputation of the clan (giri), he will nonetheless struggle throughout the movie so as not to definitely defy his personal obligations towards the other party. Even so, however, his efforts will prove fruitless at the time of the showdown, where no in-between will be allowed.
A film that clearly embodies such inner conflict is early Kim Jee-won’s A Bittersweet Life, where bodyguard Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun) tries to strike a balance between the two. Charmed by his boss’s mistress Hee-soo (Shin Min-ah), he agrees to cover up her affair with an unknown man, in the name of his unrequited yet burning passion (ninjō). In the end, even when his secret gets exposed, he does not shirk his responsibilities (giri), undergoing torture and interrogation at the hands of his once-loyal clansmen. However, a turning point occurs when Sun-woo is offered to buy back his status by punishing Hee-soo, triggering his moral sense and thus an all-out war against his old masters.
On the other hand, compromise was never an option for Tae-gu. From the very start, his driving force lies in ninjō alone, as he intimately believes that life inside and outside of the organisation shall comply to the same set of values, of mutual help and respect: Trespassing the former implies trespassing the latter, and vice-versa. Thus, when that same organisation finally shows its true face – i.e., a blood-money machine – by failure to fulfill its ‘humanist’ vocation, he does not experience frustration or self-loathing, but rather a distinct sense of duty that perfectly matches his commitment to avenge his sister.
In that sense, Tae-gu could be legitimately defined as a new step in the evolution of ggan-pae protagonists, since he successfully dissolves the precondition for the above-mentioned dichotomy while carrying out his vengeful plan, standing out as a charismatic, gloomy and uncompromising hero – unlike the many ‘anti’-heroes’ that came before him – that will sure have an impact on gangster movies to come, in the Peninsula and beyond.
From characterisation to visuals, from storytelling to direction, Park Hoon-jung thus achieved what many award-winning directors both in the Far East and the West can only dream of: Make a movie genre transcend geographical boundaries and the limits of its own niche, featuring a piece of cinema that appears to be radically new in wittily playing with a tradition whose appreciation it was believed to lie in its pristine untouchability. In three words, a must-see.
Night in Paradise is streaming on Netflix worldwide