Spiritwalker review – stylish South Korean body-swap actioner | Film
Who is he? What occurred? After watching this high-concept body-swap thriller from South Korea, I’m nonetheless scratching my head. Bourne Id-style, it begins with a person in an costly designer go well with (Yoon Kye-sang) waking up in a automotive crash: he’s obtained a gunshot wound and no reminiscence of who he’s. However the immediate he claps his eyes on his reflection he is aware of one factor: he’s in another person’s physique. You would possibly marvel how he may be so sure what with the reminiscence loss; however begin choosing on the plot holes and your complete film falls aside in your palms.
Issues worsen for our amnesiac: at midday he wakes up in one other physique. Then at midnight the identical factor occurs – repeatedly, each 12 hours. After one switcheroo he finds himself within the basement of a sleazy upmarket strip membership within the physique of a gangland boss midway via a nasty spot of torture. All of the hosts appear to be linked to the legal underworld – and the noirish Seoul setting offers loads of glass and mirrors for him to cop a take a look at his new reflections. Curiously, Yoon performs the hosts when the amnesiac takes up residence of their our bodies, whereas completely different actors painting them at different occasions. I questioned whether or not the already-confirmed Hollywood remake will follow that casting alternative.
The memory-loss system in Spiritwalker seems like precisely that: a tool. It’s entertaining sufficient, with some well-executed automotive chases and bone-splintering fights. However the film doesn’t have an terrible lot to say about reminiscence or id, and Kye-sang’s character appears weirdly untroubled by existential terror given his predicament. My first intuition after it completed was to observe it once more to attempt to put the items of the puzzle collectively. However then once more, I’m undecided that might add very a lot.
