FILM REVIEWS
SPECIAL DELIVERY Starring: Park So-dam, Song Sae-byuk Director: Park Dae-min Category: IIB (Korean) 3/5 stars
After her breakout performance in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, Park So-dam confirms her leading-lady status as a hard-as-nails getaway driver in the action-packed crime thriller Special Delivery.
Through minimal dialogue but lashings of pouty attitude, Park runs circles around her male co-stars as her character protects an orphaned youngster from the clutches of Song Sae-byuk’s vile cop.
While the film is not an official remake of Nicolas Winding Refn’s neon-drenched noir Drive, writer-director Park Dae-min is indebted to the Ryan Gosling action vehicle. From its central premise to its retro synth score, Special Delivery lifts entire set pieces from the 2011 film.
Both focus on a mysterious loner with a shady past, who works as an expert driver-for-hire, transporting high-risk criminals crosscountry at even higher speeds. Both Park’s character Jang Eun-ha and Gosling’s nameless driver work as mechanics by day, sport shiny bomber jackets and live quietly under the radar, only coming under threat after they cross paths with a child and wayward father.
Special Delivery’s big hook, which separates it from its influential forerunner, is the gender-flipped protagonist, and the film goes out of its way to emphasise how surprising it is to the criminal underworld that a woman like Eun-ha could be such a formidable force.
Yeom Hye-ran’s National Intelligence Service agent, the film’s only other female character, is revealed to be a liability behind the wheel, just to hammer home the point that women and cars shouldn’t go together. When Eun-ha’s past is uncovered, it does little to further the plot, but is presented as justification for her unladylike abilities.
Exhilarating in its action sequences, which are as slick and violent as we have come to expect from South Korean cinema, the film loses traction whenever the dust is allowed to settle.
The script is rife with casual sexism and racial epithets, notably against Eun-ha’s South Asian colleague, and boasts a propensity for emphatic belching. This crassness sits uncomfortably alongside
Park’s efforts to unlock Eun-ha’s dormant maternal instincts and nurture a growing tenderness between this emotionally closed-off woman and her precocious young charge (Jung Hyeon-jun).
Wayward and derivative, yet fitfully entertaining, Special Delivery
earns its title by gifting Park So-dam a convincing showcase for her versatility as an unconventional, yet wholly capable star. James Marsh Special Delivery opens today
MY BEST FRIEND’S BREAKFAST Starring: Moon Lee, Eric Chou Director: Ryan Tu Category: IIA (Mandarin) 2/5 stars
Inspired by an apparently true story that first appeared on a university message board in 2015, My Best Friend’s Breakfast became a bestselling novel for author Misa and was published in many languages, before making its inevitable transition to the big screen.
A high-school romcom populated by awkward, inarticulate teens and stuffed with misunderstandings and misconceptions that could be remedied by a single conversation, this directorial debut of veteran screenwriter Ryan Tu will be catnip for fans of its young fresh-faced cast, but borderline interminable for everybody else.
Moon Lee (Terrorizers, Detention) stars as Wei-xin, the eccentric, interfering but ultimately well-meaning heroine, who seeks solace in food after the separation of her wayward parents (Darren Chiu and Esther Liu), which has left her home life in tatters.
Never one to stay out of other people’s business, Wei-xin comes to the aid of swim team hunk You-quan (Eric Chou) after overhearing him fighting with his unfaithful girlfriend, by setting him up with her BFF and the school’s most sought-after belle, Qi-ran (Jean Ho).
Wei-xin’s meddling results in Qi-ran being sent two breakfasts each morning by her new secret admirer, which Wei-xin inevitably eats herself.
Simultaneously, guitar club captain Yuan-shou (Edison Song) convinces Wei-xin, with whom he is infatuated, to play a solo in the upcoming school concert. She is reluctant to agree until You-quan offers to give her private lessons.
During all this tedious ping-ponging between swooning adolescents, all of whom are head over heels for a classmate who only has eyes for somebody else, My Best Friend’s Breakfast drops a few crumbs of genuine creativity, in particular Patty Lee Pei-yu featuring in a recurring cameo as Wei-xin 15 years hence.
The embodiment of Wei-xin’s insecurity, the future self materialises when our young protagonist is at her worst, to illustrate what life will be like if she continues down a particular path. At a moment when multiverses and parallel realities are all the rage, this is a tantalising tease of an ambitious narrative that never materialises.
Elsewhere, there are notable appearances from Chen Shu-fang as You-quan’s grandmother and pop star Lou Jun-shuo as Qi-ran’s bad-boy boyfriend, and an intriguing car-crash marriage between Darren Chiu’s aspiring musician and Esther Liu’s alcoholic hostess.
Sadly, all these infinitely more fascinating strands are sidelined in favour of Wei-xin’s bumbling and increasingly exasperating antics. James Marsh
My Best Friend’s Breakfast opens today