South Korean film “People and Meat” works best whenever it is buoyed by the solid chemistry among its three main cast members. These old but wonderful performers embody their respective roles so well that it is disappointing that the movie does not trust them enough while only resorting to blatant melodrama and cheap plot contrivance in the end.

The early part of the film illustrates how its three main characters come across each other on one day. Hyeong-joon (Park Geun-hyung) and Woo-sik (Jang Yong) are two old and poor senior citizens who have earned their meager solitary living via collecting and then selling paper trashes, and they happen to clash with each other due to their territory conflict before they are eventually stopped by Hwa-jin (Ye Soo-jung), an old lady who has supported herself and her only grandson via selling vegetables on street for years.

Anyway, Hyeong-joon later suggests that Woo-sik should have a cup of coffee along with him at his house, and Woo-sik reluctantly agrees. As talking more with each other, these two old dudes decide to have a little lunch together, and then they consider having a bowl of meat and radish soup, though neither of them knows anything about how to cook that. While Woo-sik is a lifelong bachelor, Hyeong-joon only remembers how nice it was to taste a bowl of meat and radish soup cooked by his currently diseased wife. In the end, they seek some help from Hwa-jin, who surely shows them how to cook meat and radish soup well.

After having a nice meal together in Hyeong-joon’s house, Woo-sik suggests that they should go to a meat restaurant. Needless to say, all of them do not have enough money to pay for what they are going to eat at a local meat restaurant, but Woo-sik turns out to have one naughty idea. Once they finish eating meat, they are all going to sneak out of the meat restaurant while no one is paying attention to them, and, what do you know, this turns out to be much easier than Hyeong-joon and Hwa-jin worried at first.

The mood surely becomes a bit more cheerful as these three old people commit their little crime here and there in the city. Needless to say, they never visit the same meat restaurant twice, and they always select very successful targets for feeling less guilty about their criminal activity. While still concerned about getting caught at any chance, Hyeong-joon and Hwa-jin cannot help but feel more alive than before, and that is why they cannot often say no whenever Woo-sik suggests another criminal dinner of theirs.

However, they are still reminded of how things are usually sad and depressing for them and many other old people around their age. At one point, Hyeong-joon goes to an old friend of his after receiving a call from him, and it soon turns out that this friend of his, who has also lived alone by himself just like Hyeong-joon, is preparing to die after feeling so miserable and frustrated with his declining life condition. At the following funeral of this poor old dude, Hyeong-joon and his two friends come to reflect more on how things have been hard and difficult for them mainly due to their ongoing aging, and the movie later becomes quite sentimental as they come to talk more about their respective pasts in the middle of their latest criminal dinner.

Around that narrative point, the screenplay by Lim Na-moo begins to falter more than once as clumsily swinging back and forth between comedy and melodrama. While it is not much of a spoiler to tell you that its three old main characters eventually get caught later in the story, the movie throws unnecessary melodrama after this inevitable moment, and it also feels quite heavy-handed and indecisive when it attempts to make some points on the prejudice against many aging people out there. Yes, its three old main characters deserve some understanding and sympathy just like thousands of marginalized old people in the South Korean society, but the movie makes too much excuse on their undeniably criminal activity in my humble opinion.

In addition, the story also stumbles a lot in case of a subplot involved with Hwa-jin’s grandson. At first, he looks like your average ungrateful kid, but then his attitude toward his grandmother becomes quite different for no apparent reason after the aforementioned melodramatic moment, and we never get to know much about what this lad really thinks and feels about his grandmother even at the end of the story.

At least, the three main cast members of the movie diligently carry the story and their characters to the end. While Park Geun-hyung, who recently gave a good supporting performance in “Picnic” (2023), steadily holds the ground as required, Jang Yong and Ye Soo-jung bring some life and personality to their respective characters, and Ye, who was unforgettable in “An Old Lady” (2019), demonstrates again that she is indeed one of the best senior actresses working in South Korean cinema at present.

On the whole, “People and Meat”, which was somehow shown at the Tribeca Festival early in this year, is not satisfying enough for recommendation, but it is enjoyable to some degree thanks to its three main cast members, and I must point out that It is much better than director Yang Jong-hyeon’s previous film “Kill Me” (2009), which was incidentally one of the worst films I watched during 2009. I would rather recommend “Picnic” and “An Old Lady” instead, but, considering the active reactions from an old couple sitting behind me, the movie may appeal a lot to its target audiences, and I would love to know how my aging parents will respond to it.