ESCAPE – Review

Recently, I’ve found a slew of Korean action flicks to be quite impressive, particularly for outstanding stuntwork and effects. Most have been contemporary crime-themed offerings. ESCAPE, despite its potentially action-heavy title, goes in another direction – longer on political propaganda. Still quite effective.

The protagonist is a sergeant in the North Korean army (Lee Je-hoon) in a unit patrolling the southern border with you-know-who. The area is riddled with land mines to deter deserters and defectors. He forms an elaborate plan to defect, including painstakingly mapping all the mines he’ll have to avoid when the time comes. Steve McQueen’s characters from PAPILLON and THE GREAT ESCAPE would both admire his level of preparation. His goal gets complicated when discovered by one of his men (Hong Xa-bin), who insists on going with him under threat of exposure. Any thwarted attempt would promptly be rewarded by execution, so the die is cast.

A greater obstacle arrives in the form of a smug, sadistic officer (Koo Kyo-hwan) in charge of enforcing discipline and managing political spin, when needed, to protect the image of the nation and its troops.  The two antagonists have an interesting backstory. The officer comes from a wealthy family for whom the sergeant’s family was employed, resulting in an uneven friendship of sorts in their youth. Surprising degrees of class difference emerge from a supposedly egalitarian Communist society, as the rich kid could have become a concert pianist, while the underling had few options among menial careers, despite his intellect and talents.

The mere fact of needing such extreme measures to keep its citizens and soldiers within its borders would be damning enough. But we also get plenty of elements that make the purported equality of the system look like a cynical lie. Privilege is not distributed equally or fairly. Intriguingly, despite the obvious agenda of demonizing the North, it wouldn’t take many script changes to flip the script and make it something the Supreme Leader would allow to be shown on his turf. I wonder if they shot some alternate scenes to go for that cash grab?

Most importantly, director Lee Jong-pil manages to pack considerable action, suspense and character conflict into his production. Koo Kyo-hwan is fleshed out as a surprisingly complex villain, even evoking a dollop of empathy beneath his overarching cruelty. The sergeant’s persona surprises with quick thinking and creativity on top of his stellar leadership and soldiering skills. The package delivers on action and entertainment irrespective of its polemic purpose.

ESCAPE, in Korean with English subtitles, debuts streaming on Well Go USA Entertainment on Tuesday, Jan. 14.