Veteran 2 / I, The Executioner

I tend to talk about Chinese and Korean companies releasing their films direct to American theaters with minimal delay as a "new" thing, but Veteran was, near as I can tell, directly distributed by CJ nine years ago (although I think they were presenting as "CJ Entertainment" versus "CJ ENM" back then), so, yeah, we're looking at South Korean companies doing this for roughly a decade. The funny thing is, there's been enough growth in Korean pop-culture in that decade that this movie's sequel is probably hitting a lot more theaters than the first did, so it makes sense to rename it rather than have it look like a sequel to something the audience hasn't seen. Thus "I, The Executioner", which is accurate if more Mickey Spillane-coded than the movie is, most of the time.

One kind of funny thing about this is, Veteran was a movie that fold who were not really that into Korean movies were telling me they really liked back at the time, even though I kind of didn't, so it's in my head as a popular-enough Korean movie that the name which highlights the original might grab more interest than this, even though I assume CJ has research saying otherwise. Also, the original somehow got lodged in my head as a different sort of not-great actioner - more nasty violence than bloat - so I spent a fair amount of this one scratching my head, thinking it feels like a weird sort of sequel to Veteran before looking at my old review and realizing, no, it's kind of the same issues. Time and memory are weird.

Kind of amusingly, depending on where you look for listings, this is sometimes shown as "Veteran 2: I, The Executioner". I guess this used to happen all the time - consider Police Story 3 becoming Supercop which leads to the oddity of Police Story 3: Supercop 2.


Beterang 2 (Veteran 2 aka I, The Executioner)

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 27 September 2024 in AMC Causeway Street #5 (first-run, laser DCP)

For some reason, I had a different lingering impression of Veteran in my head from when I saw it in its original release nine years ago, which had me thinking that the new sequel felt kind of off, kind of like those later Jackie Chan movies where they called them Police Story sequels just because he was playing a detective even if they didn't really feel like the first two. It turns out, the problem is the opposite: Veteran 2 is kind of the same as the first, gassy and meandering enough that the reminders that Ryoo Seung-wan can do some great action make one wonder why there's not more.

For those that forget, the cop of the title is Seo Do-Cheol (Hwang Jung-Min), who tends to take point on a detective team led by Oh Jae-pyeong (Oh Dal-su) and also including Bong Yoon-joo (Jang Yoon-joo), Yoon Si-yeong (Kim Shi-hoo), and Wang Dong-heyon (Oh Dae-hwan). Their latest target is "Haechi", a vigilante who is killing criminals who seem to get off light, egged on by "Editor Justice" Park (Shin Seung-Hwan) and his YouTube channel, and they've been assigned to guard Jeon Seok-woo (Jeong Man-sik), a character from the first film who only served three years for the death of a pregnant woman he drunkenly attacked. For assistance, they are seconded Park Sun-woo (Jung Hae-in), who has gained a reputation as the "UFC Patrolman" thanks to videos of his takedowns, but the trails lead in directions that don't quite add up.

The timelines don't quite add up to think that someone at CJ saw the money being made by Ma Dong-seok's The Roundup series, themselves sequels to a movie from several years earlier, and realized they had something like that themselves, but there are some frustrating similarities: Investigative teams that are too big for everyone to be part of the story, trying to find a space to use other returning characters, trying to build a story around the lead cracking a case when his primary skill is fighting. It's got a lot of what made the first feel kind of bloated to start in a couple of side plots involving Do-cheol's wife Ju-yeon (Jin Kyung) and son Woo-jin (Byun Hong-jun), and even a lot of the main threads aren't as interesting as they could be, especially the ones that put Do-cheol and company well behind the audience. It all comes together in the finale, but the reaction is often that it kind of had to, not edge-of-one's seat excitement at how Ryoo and co-writer Lee Won-jae tie things together.

It is a bit more streamlined than the first, though, and what's interesting is that the filmmakers do seem to be trying to walk the walk in terms of their meta-commentary: Where the first one sort of did the standard shades of gray with how it was tough to be married to this sort of tough-guy cop, this film has how posturing about violent crime tends to increase it and make society more dangerous near its heart. Do-cheol has seemingly mellowed a bit, in that where he tends to pop off about wanting to lay a beatdown on suspects, he's actually a bit more methodical and by-the-book; Hwang Jung-min handles the assignment in a way that's eminently believable though not operatic in highlighting the conflict. There are points made about how Korea is actually very safe (the chief is frustrated by casual talk of serial killers because there haven't been any in almost fifteen years and doesn't want this treated lightly) and that claims of various dangers are exaggerated by those looking to profit that are eventually connected by action rather than lecture. There is, perhaps, a little consideration of how movies like this shape this perception, which maybe makes it tricky to build a truly satisfying story, and pulls Ryoo, often top-tier in how he stages action, away from what he does best.

When he does get to do more action, though, it's still noteworthy just how good he is: The opening especially is playful and fun, as Miss Bong infiltrates what is apparently an underground casino for wine moms behind the scenes of an all-night plastic surgery clinic, a funny idea that leads to some well-staged bits that find a sweet spot between slapstick comedy and quality action. The finale tries to adapt that somewhat, balancing the danger of a setting where one wrong step can be deadly with how the confrontation can't just be Do-cheol beating the hell out of someone without betraying the story, and does fairly well. In between, it makes for an odd situation as the characters plug away until it comes time for a confrontation and one is reminded that Ryoo, Hwang, and newcomer Jung Hae-in (and various stunt performers) are good at this: There's not just impressive physicality on display, but intent and characterization: Do-cheol seems good at this but showing a bit of age; Sun-woo shows a certain earned pride in his abilities; and Ahn Bo-hun's Min Gang-hun does carry himself like a junkie ex-special forces type whose skills are still sharp and almost instinctive beneath a mourning, drugged-out haze.

Like the first film, Veteran 2 feels like a good editor could get a really great 105-minute movie out of its two hours, even before getting to how the film just really will not stop tying up every sublot after it is basically over. There are a lot of good pieces here, but it bogs down trying not to contradict itself.