Good Neighbor (2020)

Sometimes you have to risk all to have a safer and better life

When you open up your mind, you never know where you will meet your Best Friend. Set in the tumultuous 1980's in Korea, this film was very loosely based on real events and presidential candidate and activist Kim Dae Jung.

During a time of martial law, student protests, brutal interrogations and arrests, Lee Ui Sik finds himself and his family under house arrest for being in opposition to the ruling power. As the intelligence chief states, anyone not like himself is a "commie" and "commies" are detained, or deported, or killed. The chief calls upon Dae Kwon, a part-time patriotic helper, to move in next to the Presidential candidate, Lee Ui Sik and his family, who are serving under house imprisonment and surveil them. The goal is to prove Lee is a commie with ties to North Korea and finally rid themselves of him. Through a series of comic adventures, Dae Kwon and Lee meet, even ending up in a bathhouse with Lee's son. Though on opposite sides, both men are lonely and in need of friendship. The more Dae Kwon listens in on the upright Lee and the more he sees how the current government covers up its own dirty work, he slowly begins to change his mind and his ideas.

Like many Korean movies, Best Friend's mood changed on a dime and went from comedy to tragedy, back to comedy and a host of other emotions. Some of it worked and some of it didn't. It could be uneven and even jarring at times, but it was never boring. Veteran actor Kim Byung Chul as Dae Kwon's assistant was the catalyst for many of the laughs. Lee's family played it dramatically straight for much of the movie. Though a few scenes went fully into melodramatic territory, the final act revealed the dangers of attempting to change a corrupt regime.

Jung Woo gave a complex performance having to work both the comedy and melodramatic beats of the film. Dae Kwon not only dealt with spying on his neighbor, but he was also a husband and dad and not a very good one. Through his clandestine observations, Jung Woo shows Dae Kwon's epiphanies as old beliefs and habits make way for new ones. Scandal plagued Oh Dal Soo was fine as the beleaguered candidate having to make decisions even as he faced personal crises and death threats.

I have to give Korea points for being willing to look at difficult times in their history and work through them artistically. Though a fictional work, bordering on fantasy at times, Best Friend did push forth the idea that in order to change society even when it might come at great personal cost, it had to be done for the good of all and future generations.
With the themes of enemies to friendship, sacrifice for the greater good, and personal evolution, Best Friend, if not inspiring, could be funny, entertaining and even heartwarming. Not a perfect film, it was too erratic and sometimes heavy-handed, but one worth trying sometime. (7.75)



8/24/22

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from 8.5 to a 9.5

the plot is kinda like Kim Young Min's story in Crash Landing on You. Dae Kwon was assigned to spy on Lee Eui Shik so he moves into the house next door with fellow agents Dong Shik and Young Chul. what follows next is a funny, unexpected heartwarming journey.

the story isn't original and tbh I still wonder was it really like that? did they control the country and tortured anyone who questioned it?
it kinda feels so easy to say "those people are dictators". why do they have so much power when the public outnumbers them?

the movie was long but it was really well balanced, the 1st half was a funny bromance sequence and the 2nd half became a fight for their rights and it ended nicely too that I really enjoyed it.

the only things I didn't like was 1- the poop jokes, 2- the excessive poop sounds, and the fact that 3- even if their villain seemed to possess ultimate power, it kinda ended too fast. like the fact that they did so much and got away with it and in the end there was no closure for that..

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