HONG KONG INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: If there is one thing Asian films do well, it’s genre hybrids. Perhaps, because genre traditions are primarily an outgrowth of the American cinema, the Asian approach tends to be less reverential about what can and can’t be done where and when. But it doesn’t always work. One of the big box office Korean films of 2012, Howling, which I caught up with at the Hong Kong Film market, is a case in point. It’s a cop movie that flirts with something else. Let me explain.
Song Kang-ho plays mean, sexist and violent Seoul detective named Jo Sang-gil, who is bitter about his ex-wife and his delinquent son and has just missed out on a promotion to boot. Song employs just a glimmer of the warmth that has made him a Korean icon in films like The Host and Memories of Murder, but he’s no nice guy, as he quickly displays when he meets his new female partner, Detective Cha Eun-young (Lee Na-young – who, by the way, is an actress I haven’t seen since she played the romantic lead in the 2003 Korean romantic comedy Please Teach Me English that also featured Australian actress – and clapper loader – Angela Kelly).
Detective Cha is an independent woman who, contrary to the conservative leanings of Detective Jo, preferred the police night shift to marriage to her probably similar ex-husband. Challenged by having a woman as a partner, Jo barks at her and does everything he can to cut her out of the detecting loop. The only thing that bothers him more than her is the not-so-gentle ribbing from his colleagues that imply none too subtly that his new partner is plying him with sexual favours. Jo may be belligerent and sexist, but he’s serious about his police work.
The case Jo and Cha are working on begins with the possible self-immolation of a charred corpse, but footwork and stake-outs establish a link with a paedophile network. As Jo starts to zero in on a chief suspect, the man is then attacked by a wolf.
There is a visual association with Detective Cha that precedes this first wolf attack (more follow) which feeds the idea that the female detective holds a mystical connection with the wolf attack. This level of mysticism is – circumstantially at least – reinforced later on. Is she a werewolf? Is Detective Jo? No such luck: it ultimately becomes a red herring.
When the origins of the wolf are eventually revealed (you probably don’t need me to tell you this, but wolves are as common on the streets of Seoul as kangaroos are on the streets of Sydney), it functions well enough for narrative purposes, but director Yoo Ha seems keen to allude to some form of symbolism, if not mysticism. He hints at genre hybrid (not helped by use of the werewolf-associated word howling as his title).
There is perhaps room to draw a line between the power of the wolf and the ebbing status of the overbearing masculinity of Detective Jo. Korean and Japanese folk tales about wolves often suggest that they are creatures from a higher plane (i.e. Detective Cha is superior to her male colleagues). Unfortunately, neither of these interpretations fit comfortably, leaving the film (or the critic?) reaching for something it is unable to grasp. While Howling is well acted and has the usual Korean production’s high standards, this extra emphasis feels like an excess part that doesn’t fit neatly in the film.
