I do not mind watching movies about unlikable characters, but South Korean thriller film “Dirty Money” did not engage me at all. The movie is not only utterly contrived but also quite mediocre in terms of story and characters, and I did not care much about whatever is going to happen, while only observing that they had it coming from the beginning. 

The guy at the center of the story is Myung-Deuk (Jung Woo), a corrupt detective who happens to come across a chance to change his life once for all. Via a bit of information from one of those criminals associated with them, he and his partner Dong-hyeok (Kim Dae-myung) come to learn that there has been the secret transaction of a huge amount of dirty money from some big local Chinatown gang to their big boss in China, and they become more tempted when they later get more information about when and where this criminal activity has been done. Because both of them are in each own desperate need for cash right now, Myung-Deuk suggests to his partner that they should rob those Chinatown gangs, and Dae-myung agrees to that despite his initial reluctance.

At first, all they will have to do looks pretty simple. First, they need an accomplice who can supply a pair of firearms to be used for robbery, and they easily recruit a young policeman who has been eager to get some extra money behind his back. Besides stealing the firearms from his police station, this lad also provides an abandoned place for hiding the money they are going to steal, and then we see he and his two accomplices prepare a bit together for their big criminal plan.

Of course, their plan soon goes pretty wrong once they attempt an ambush on those Chinatown gangs. As the consequence of their criminal action leads to a full police investigation led by their team, Myung-deuk and Dong-hyeok naturally become a lot more nervous than before, and then there comes an old colleague of Myung-deuk, who knows a lot about how much Myung-deuk has been corrupted after one wrong decision which ruined his career.  

What naturally follows next is a cat and mouse game between Myung-deuk and that detective, but the movie seriously lacks personality and competence in many aspects. Both Myung-deuk and Dong-hyeok are not particularly developed well as main characters, and a melodramatic subplot involved with Myung-deuk’s very ill daughter is shamelessly manipulative for trying to make us feel some pity and sympathy for him. Sure, he does have an understandable human reason behind his corruption, but the movie often overplays that too much in my humble opinion, and that makes the last act look all the more predictable.

In addition, most of the other substantial characters in the story are more or less than cardboard figures to be moved here and there just for plot necessity. For example, that detective character who suspects Myung-deuk more along the story seems to have some complicated feelings about his opponent, but, the movie eventually discards that later in the story without much thought. In case of a bunch of ruthless Chinatown gangs who also come to suspect Myung-Deuk more, they are bland and unpleasant stereotype figures who look like the leftovers from “The Yellow Sea” (2010) and “The Outlaws” (2017), and their several moments of extreme violence do not add much to the story and characters while only leaving a bad taste on us.

Above all, the movie failed to surprise me as I could easily guess its every move in advance. Yes, Myung-deuk and his partner eventually find themselves in a very tricky situation as they desperately try to find a way out for them in one way or another, but they only keep doing unwise things to cause more mess around them. In my humble opinion, the movie could be a bit more entertaining if it depicts their pitiful struggles with a sense of ironic humor, but the movie is solemnly serious about that from the beginning to the end, and it even fails to generate enough suspense to hold our attention. As a result, we only become more distant to the story and characters, while being more aware of its half-baked plot machination.

The main cast members do try a lot for filling their respective parts, but many of them are not particularly charismatic enough for that. While Jung-woo is often limited by his flat and uninteresting hero character, Kim Dae-myung provides some levity as Myung-deuk’s pathetic partner, and Park Byung-eun does not have much to do as merely looking tense and menacing as required. In case of several other cast members including Cho Hyun-chul, Teo Yoo, and Han Hye-ji, they are regrettably wasted due to their superficial supporting roles, and I can only hope that the movie will just be a minor blip in Yoo’s promising acting career, which has been recently boosted by his stellar leading performance in Oscar-nominated film “Past Lives” (2023).       

On the whole, “Dirty Money”, directed by Kim Min-soo, is thoroughly disappointing for its uninspiring handling of genre elements, and I must confess that my mind often searches for better South Korean genre flicks such as “A Hard Day” (2014), which is also about a corrupt cop hero’s desperate struggle for any possible way out from his increasingly problematic situation. Although I observed its rotten hero’s increasingly messy plight from the distance, I had a fair amount of fun and thrill from “A Hard Day”, and I still fondly remember that entertaining experience even at this point. As a matter of fact, you should check this out instead, and you will definitely thank me for that.