Semaine de la Critique review - COIN LOCKER GIRL by Han Jun-hee

A modern South Korean Oliver Twist noir. The feature debut by Han Jun-hee, Coin Locker Girl, presented in the Semaine de la Critique programme of the 68th Cannes Film Festival. 

Coin Locker girl is an exciting South Korean modern noir, that plays upon traditionalist structures, but updates them with a stylish edge and interestingly defined characters that seem to have stepped out of a George Miller graphic novel. 

It tells the story of a young girl who, abandoned in a coin locher at a train station, is sold to a female mob boss who calls herself Mother and who raises her as her protégé. She becomes a useful component of her Mother's loan shark and organ trafficking business, until she finds herself unable to stop herself from falling for the son of a debtor, which causes an irrepairable split between her and her surrogate family as they gradually turn on her and hunt her down. 

Coin Locker Girl is the debut directorial debut by Han Jun-hee, who makes an intense and entertaining modern noir with plenty of violence and action but also, surprisingly an added layer of sensibility, brought about not least of all because the two leading antagonists in this story are female. It flows at a good pace and gripping rhythm, with excitement enhanced by action sequences and stylised violence. 

There are also a few themes that are examined quite well in the film. One of them is the marginalisation of the characters, and a particularly vibrant examination of the South Korean crime underworld. Another prominent theme is that of family, which a times seems to recall a decadent and sinister updated version of The Godfather, with an eventual revenge film spin. Given the set-up, it also recalls a family type of urban marginalisation of Oliver Twist by Dickens. 

Despite this, it is very true that neither of these themes are developed with any degree of compelling realism, but rather as starting point's for the feature's narrative. It is clear that Coin Locker Girl is more a film about entertaining escapism than thought provoking highbrow storytelling. 

A darkened cinematography enhances the menacing aura of the story, and a disquieting side to the thrill of the chase. Despite her petite figure, Kim Go-Eun is soon believable as a beautiful, apparently innocent and yet deceptively dangerous femme fatale. But it is Kim Hye-soo, one of the most glamorous of leading actresses of South Korea, that steals the show as the hardened and seemingly emotionless Mother.