11am on a Friday morning is a great time to watch a film which questions the new world order we are all subject to. Chan-wook’s film has enough highways and byways for the viewer to undergo their own personal journey down its highways and byways. After the set up, with Man-su losing his job and embarking on his dastardly scheme to become re-employed, there were moments when the film teeters on the edge of self-indulgence, in the style of a Jacobean tragedy which becomes obliged to go through its revenge story beats. (With some gratuitous comedy beats thrown in). Yet, as the narrative starts to swirl towards its centrifugal conclusion, the investment of director and audience is rewarded. Chan-wook’s meditations on the diabolical nature of a world given over to dehumanised capital, aided and abetted by AI, comes into flower in a darkened lights-out factory. The dedication to Costa Gavras in the closing credits feels like game recognising game.
