We always expect surprises and extremes from the Korean director Park Chan-wook. ‘Decision to Leave‘ (Korean title is ‘Heojil kyolshim‘) seems to deviate from this rule. There is no complete lack of shocking shots, but we are far from the eroticism or violence of his previous films. This 2022 production is a combination of police investigation, psychological thriller and above all a toxic and obsessive love story. It’s a coming-of-age film that confirms that Park Chan-wook is one of the most exciting Korean directors of the moment.
Hae-joon is a police officer specializing in complicated crime cases. In the first part of the film we find him in Busan where interesting cases abound, some of them unexplained. Hae-joon is an insomniac and his marriage is faltering. His wife works far away and the couple only see each other on weekends. The investigation into the mountaintop death of an immigration official who was an experienced mountaineer brings him into contact with Seo-rae, the victim’s much younger wife, a beautiful woman of Chinese descent, who becomes the prime suspect. Hae-joon follows the woman and becomes interested in her for reasons beyond the professional reasons. The death is classified as suicide, but neither the case nor the relationship between the two ends there. 13 months later, the two meet again in Ipo, a much quieter town by the sea. Hae-joon tries to fix his own marriage while Seo-rae is remarried to a financial analyst who has quite a few enemies. His death becomes the first murder in Ipo after a long time. Hae-joon investigates again, Seo-rae is again a suspect. However, the cases are much more complex than the policeman suspects and his feelings towards the young woman do not help him at all in the investigations.
Park Chan-wook has stated in interviews that one of the film’s inspirations was Scandinavian detective novels. Indeed, the visual experience constructed by the director and his cinematographer Kim Ji-yong reflects this. Many scenes take place at night or in dimly lit interiors, and when the scenes take place during the day, the colors are metallic and the sky is almost always overcast. Nature blends unsettlingly and ultimately overwhelmingly into the story. In the narration, Park Chan-wook uses a very interesting method, alternating the thoughts of detective Hae-joon, the main character, in the real images. The sense that the story is being told from the man’s point of view is very well suggested, just visually, without using voice-overs like other directors would have done. The two actors who play the main roles – Park Hae-il and Tang Wei – each play their roles very well, but the chemistry between the two did not seem to work very well. Maybe it’s my problem too because I’m not very familiar with Asian communication codes and facial expressions. I was able to connect with each of them individually, but I didn’t feel the passion between them that should fuel what’s happening on screen. The film is impressive as it is, but I wish Park Chan-wook was more daring like he was in some of his previous films.