Contagion gets a make-over in Deranged, Park Joung-woos high-pitched but engrossing South Korean medical disaster film, which has out-grossed The Amazing Spiderman in its opening two weeks domestically and is slated for U.S. release on July 27. The source of a million infections that brings Korea to its knees is a long, mutant horsehair worm that develops from a larva in the human intestine until its gruesomely ready to come out. The idea certainly has merit, and how not to be impressed by the snake-like creepy crawlers that are discreetly glimpsed emerging from drowned cadavers and the like? Focused on one familys personal drama, without lingering on repulsive footage, the tale is watchable by the young and squeamish and could make for exotic summer entertainment offshore.
The first 20 minutes are invested in character development, creating a believable web of relationships between Jae-hyeok (Kim Myung-min), disgruntled sales exec in a pharmaceutical company, his beleaguered wife (Mun Jung-hee) and kids and his brother Jae-pil (Kim Don-wan), a lowly cop dating (why?) smart Dr. Kim (former Miss Korea Honey Lee.) Foreboding music and screams at an amusement park keep the audience guessing when and how the action will begin.
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The pandemic starts when skin-and-bones corpses start floating down the river, bearing horrific signs of malnourishment. First the police are called in, and Jae-pil is sent upcountry to check for chemical pollution at the rivers source. Then, as more and more emaciated people are found drowned, enter the medics, with young Dr. Kim playing the role of patients advocate and inveighing against the inhuman measures employed by the governments national emergency task force. As the compassionate Prime Minister strains to get the epidemic under control, its hard not to flash on Japans recent tsunami tragedy and official response to that disaster.
The most anti-Big Pharma film since The Constant Gardener, though the ending softens its criticism considerably, Deranged addresses the question of what would happen if the paranoiacs were right and there really was a giant conspiracy by a pharmaceutical company to create an unknown disease and stockpile the only drug able to cure it, killing thousands to maximize its own profit. In this indictment of human greed, there is something very Korean about the way the government scrupulously observes legal niceties in an attempt to persuade the killer company to forego its patent on the healing drug. But its not just big business thats guilty, but also the brother-heroes addicted to playing the stock market; they parallel the masses of unbalanced victims in prey to the parasite eating away inside them and taking control of their brains, until it pushes them to commit suicide by throwing themselves into a body of water where it can continue its life cycle. That's greed for you.
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Social comment aside, writer-director Park Joung-woo does a fine job entwining the expected genre scenes of quarantine camps and mass hysteria, emergency task forces and martial law with Jae-hyeoks drama as a below-average husband who turn into a hero when his wife and kids get infected. His relentless search for the remedy that his own company produced and hid furnishes the driving force for the main action, and Kim Myung-min projects unflinching intensity in the role. The supporting cast members, best known for their TV work, are perfectly adequate, particularly Mun Jung-hee as the infected but self-sacrificing wife who clutches her children in the segregated quarantine camp where even cell phones, the victims last shard of human dignity, are taken away by the anonymous authorities.
With all this material to cover, pacing is perforce fast and never self-indulgent. However, there are a number of missed opportunities to pump up the adrenaline, had the wide-screen camera only lingered a bit longer on the victims faces, the dogs being unleashed into the river at night or even offered us one good, long close-up at that nasty horsehair worm.
Reviewed on DVD, July 16, 2012.
Production Company: Ozone Film
Cast: Kim Myung-min, Mun Jung-hee, Kim Don-wan, Honey Lee
Director: Park Joung-woo
Screenwriter: Park Joung-woo
Producers: Charles Park, Kim Song-o
Executive producer: Jeon Taesung
Director of photography: Ki Se-hoon
Production designer: Kang Seung-yong
Composer of music: Jo Young-wook
Sales agent: C J Entertainment
No rating, 109 minutes
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