Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film “The Godfather Part II”, which was re-released in South Korean theaters not long after “The Godfather” (1972) was shown first, tries to do two different things together at once. Whether this is really successful is rather debatable, the movie is an ambitious sequel equal to its predecessor in terms of scope, and it surely has a number of great elements to shine inside its darkly epic crime drama.

The movie consists of two main stories. The first one, which is actually the real center of the story considering that it occupies around the two thirds of the running time (200 minutes), illustrates what happens several years after the ending of “The Godfather”. It is 1958, and Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) and his criminal organization have grown much with more power and influence since they moved to Nevada from New York City. During the sequence clearly reminiscent of the opening sequence of “The Godfather”, Michael meets a number of various people in private while the big party for his son’s First Communion is being held outside his big house, and we are introduced to some new characters besides Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and several other notable supporting characters from the first film.

Everything feels fine on the surface with Michael quietly exerting his power and influence over others around him just like his father did, but, of course, there soon comes a big problem. Probably because of the ongoing expansion of his criminal business, Michael is ambushed by a sudden attack on him and his wife, and he must find whoever is associated with this attack, while also trying to close a big upcoming business deal with Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), an aging but powerful Jewish mob boss who once worked under Michael’s father.

Just like the predecessor, the film juggles numerous characters along its story, which becomes more complicated as unfolding its sprawling narrative among several different places besides Nevada. Michael later goes to Cuba for finally settling his business with Roth, but the situation becomes much trickier than expected due to the increasingly unstable political mood in Cuba. Not long after his return from Cuba, there come two different bad news for Michael, and they make him all the more paranoid and suspicious about everything around him, though he still mostly keeps his thoughts and feelings to himself as usual.

Although the story sometimes becomes a bit too murky and complex for us to process and understand the ongoing plot against Michael, the screenplay by Coppola and his co-writer Mario Puzo, which is partially based on Puzo’s bestseller novel of the same name, keeps things rolling via excellent writing and solid characterization. As Michael descends further into his criminal darkness, the story doles out small and big moments between him and several other characters around him, and we become more engaged in his drama even though we are often chilled or devastated by how much he lets himself driven by his ruthless pursuit of power and safety.

In contrast, the other part of the story, which depicts the past of Michael’s father, sometimes looks like something solely existing for lightening up the overall mood a bit. We see how his father had to leave his hometown in Sicily, Italy in 1901. We see how he entered the world of crime after growing up and then trying to raise his own family in New York City in 1917. And we see how he eventually took the first steps toward his powerful status shown in the first film.

On paper, the criminal ascent of Michael’s father is supposed to be a dramatic part to complement Michael’s moral descent, but, as revisiting the film at a local movie theater at last night, I felt that the former interrupts the narrative flow of the latter to some degree as they are intertwined with each other throughout the movie. Robert De Niro, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, did a good job of embodying the recognizable aspects of Marlon Brando’s Oscar-winning performance in the first film without cheaply imitating them at all, but his character’s drama does not have much surprise compared to Micheal’s, and I also heard that De Niro’s Italian speaking in the film has not been received that well by many native speakers (This is why I do not have much objection on the AI-correction on the Hungarian speaking in Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” (2024)). At least, it is clear that Coppola’s production designer Dean Tavoularis had a field day as filling the screen with vivid period atmosphere and details to bring more epic qualities to the movie, and he deservedly won an Oscar (The movie garnered total six Oscars including the ones for Best Picture and Best Director, by the way).

In the end, the restrained but undeniably powerful performance by Al Pacino, who was Oscar-nominated again after “The Godfather” and Sidney Lumet’s “Serpico” (1973), is the one which ultimately takes the center. Although we become more and more distant to his character along the story, Pacino keeps engaging us with subtle nuances to observe, and that is why several striking moments of his character in the film are so effective.

In case of a bunch of other supporting performers around Pacino, they are all splendid as having each own moment to stand out. While Lee Strasberg and Michael V. Gazzo, who were Oscar-nominated along with De Niro in the same category, are terrific in their respective parts, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, who also received a well-deserved Oscar nomination, and John Cazale are equally wonderful as being effortlessly back in their familiar roles, and Keaton, who sadly passed away a few weeks ago, and Shire provide some female perspective on the adamantly male-dominant qualities of the movie.

On the whole, “The Godfather Part II” may be one small step down from the almost perfect achievement of its predecessor, but it has firmly and steadily occupied its position during last five decades. Coppola surely reaches for more greatness here, and the result may not be entirely successful, but I was totally absorbed in the story and characters again. That says a lot about its own greatness, folks.