7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A police detective determined to catch the unseen boss of Asia's biggest drug cartel joins hands with a revenge-thirsty member of the gang.
Starring: Cho Jin-woong, Kim Sung-ryung, Ryu Jun-yeol, Cha Seung-won, Jung Ga-ramForeign | 100% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Korean: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Korean: Dolby Digital 2.0
English
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
There’s a framing device of sorts that bookends Believer, a viscerally energetic Korean film about illicit drug activity, one that almost looks like an outtake from the oddly watchable old series Ice Road Truckers. A man we later find out is narcotics detective Won-ho (Cho Jo-woong) is driving through a bitterly cold snowy environment that could well have been a location for the A&E series, though after an introductory look at the frozen wilderness, the film opts for a warmer climate until it returns to icier conditions for its final scene. As treacherous as the environment seems to be in these sequences, it’s actually the nefarious activities of drug dealers that provides most of the danger in Believer, which is a kinda sorta remake of the Chinese actioner Drug War, a film which kind of ironically I started my review of by mentioning the perceived unknowability of some Asian cultures, including Korea (North, in that instance). In fact it wasn’t until I visited the IMDb to check specs on the film that I even realized Believer was in a fact a remake, since, while both films deals with the vagaries of underground drug activity, there are structural artifices that separate the two, including a rather major one that will be detailed below which sets this film apart from the earlier entry.
Believer is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Believer's credits are entirely in (untranslated) Korean, which is one reason I initially didn't realize the film was a remake of Drug War, but there's an Alexa logo among many logos in the final crawl, and the IMDb lists various Arri Alexa models as having digitally captured the imagery, with everything being finished at a 2K DI. While the film kind of predictably plays out with gradings skewed almost uniformly toward cooler blues and slate grays, detail levels are consistently pretty impressive throughout this presentation. Certain stylistic conceits are on hand from time to time, including some quasi-hallucinatory moments (see screenshots 9 and 11), and detail levels understandably aren't quite as sharp and precise looking in those moments as in the bulk of the transfer. Fine detail in close-ups is routinely excellent, including some kind of ghastly looking wounds that accrue on various characters. The film offers some surprisingly scenic outdoor material where depth of field is also commendable. As in many Alexa shot features, I found some of the dimly lit material a bit lacking in detail and shadow definition, especially considering the fact that so much of the film is graded toward blue and characters are often wearing that hue or blacks (see screenshot 19).
Believer features an extremely aggressive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in the original Korean which actually provoked a startle response in me (a fairly rare occurrence) in the forceful LFE that accompanies that explosion where Oh's life is almost taken. There are a number of other bombastic moments in the film, but what continually impresses in this track is the sheer glut of surround activity in terms of both outdoor environmental effects and the indoor clamor of some crowded scenes. Dynamic range is extremely wide throughout this presentation, varying from some whisper quiet dialogue scenes to over the top action moments that offer a lot of effects activity. Fidelity is excellent throughout, and dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly.
Believer may be a bit repetitive and it never really wants to delve too far beneath the surface of its characters, but it's viscerally exciting a lot of the time, with a generally brisk pace and some really outré characters who may appeal to those who like their villains on the eccentric side. Technical merits are first rate, though Well Go USA tends to give short shrift to supplements. Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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