Janggunui adeul III (1992)

User Rating:

4.8/10   

Director:

Kwon-taek Im

Writer:

Song-yu Hong (writer)

Release Date:

11 September 1992 (South Korea)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama | Romance

Plot Keywords:

Sequel

Cast

Sang-min Park	...	Kim Doo-han
Yeon-su Oh
Il-jae Lee
Hyeon-jun Shin	...	Hayashi
Seung-woo Kim

Also Known As:

General's Son III (International: English title)
Son of a General III (USA)

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

South Korea

Language:

Japanese | Mandarin | Korean

Certification:

South Korea:15

Company:

Taeheung Pictures

Movie Connections:

Follows Janggunui adeul II (1991)

Too little and too late

I can't help but think that Im Kwontaek had the Godfather trilogy in mind as he was making General's Son III and its predecessors. The third and final film somehow manages to get a lot more right in the story, but at the same time inherits more troubles than it can really get out of and leaves a bit of a mess when all is said and done.

In the last arc, we see the fruition of the pride from the second film (which, you know can never be good). Kim Doohan is on the run from the authorities, so he makes his way out of Corea and into Manchuria, ending up in an adventure with some familiar faces that too conveniently make themselves present in Manchuria. After some adventures, word of troubles back in Chosen (Corea) proper gets back to Doohan and he runs back to confront the evil Yakuza. That's my synopsis.

Two things were drastically improved in this film: character development of Doohan, which was hinted at in the second film when rivals for the affections of a kisang (a Corean courtesan). The other great development in this film was the addition of a strong female character. Unfortunately, these things don't fully mask all the problems that the film has in terms of story and storytelling. Again, the film has a lot of problems tracking its characters and cleanly denoting how much we're supposed to care about them, including Doohan's rival/friend from the previous films and the aforementioned female character. Also, being a sequel and inheriting the story from the second film leaves this film in halves. The first half dealing with the consequences of being on the run and a completely new story about returning to Jongno (the original gang's turf) and taking it back. Because of this division, there doesn't seem to be a lot of coherence between the two parts (in terms of overall story), except for the traversing of characters between the two halves.

This "two movies squeezed into one" approach significantly weakens the film as the first half is almost entirely inconsequential, except to deal with the consequences from the third. Also, there are some logical pitfalls as well as we clearly see a lot of the characters in the second film get stabbed and otherwise brutalized and yet almost all of them are walking around just fine in the third. Also, the passage of time between the first and second halves of the film is sort of nebulous. It seems like it's not much, but events that have occurred dealing with the female character seem to have required a lot of time, thus creating some temporal dissonance. In the second half, the film finally picks up, but by now it's almost hard to care as we watch our protagonist struggle against the Yakuza. The film does lose a bit of its anti-Japanese nationalism, but it's presence is still there; it does benefit from being more centered on the character of Doohan than on the whole nationalism sentiment present in the previous two films.

Unfortunately, by now it's hard to be wowed by the fights and nice camera-work, because you've seen it all before, but the added female character is portrayed well by the actress. Technically, the film and its predecessors have the highest production values you could expect from a Corean film from the 90's, which isn't great, but is surprising to see nonetheless.

While the new focus on character is a great addition to the film, it all comes a little too late. Everything about the film that made it so interesting the first time around becomes old hat by the third and the injection of character development does keep this film from being unwatchable, it still comes across as clumsy (as well as seeming to channel too much of Godfather Part II's Michael Corleone). Add that to the fact that half of the film is almost entirely unnecessary, except to establish the actual character progression in the third makes this a bit of a hard watch. I won't say it's worse than the second film, but back to back, it's disappointing. Especially since the second film begs you to watch the third. As such, I would suggest skipping parts II and III unless you're the type that enjoys badass fight sequences enough that it, combined with the new emphasis on character in the second half of the film, will get you through the whole of the General's Son trilogy. 5/10.