FRIEND 2: THE LEGACY (Kwak Kyung-taek). 124 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (December 13). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NN
Before names like Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) and Lee Chang-dong (Oasis) turned Western eyes toward South Korean cinema, Kwak Kyung-taek’s 2001 crime drama Friend was a hit with that country’s audiences.
Self-serious, melodramatic sequel Friend 2: The Legacy (or Friend: The Great Legacy, as the opening credits have it), picks up 17 years after the original, just as crime boss Lee Joon-seok (Yoo Oh-seong) wraps up a prison sentence for ordering a hit on his best friend/rival gang leader.
Reuniting with his Busan crime family only to discover that the new leadership isn’t too keen on returning control to him, Joon-seok mounts a violent yet dull and illogical takeover effort with prison mate Seong-hoon (Kim Woo-bin), a young firecracker in desperate need of a father figure.
The emotional entanglements between these two players give this sequel some much-needed heft, especially in the case of Woo-bin, a fine performer who enlivens derivative material. The overstuffed plot is constantly interrupted by flashbacks that fill in unnecessary character histories to make this both a prequel and a sequel à la The Godfather, Part II. The earnest attempt at being epic is obvious.
Failing to replicate the gonzo storytelling and dynamic aesthetic that has made South Korean cinema a sensation, Friend 2, like its predecessor, won’t make much of an impression in West.
