Veteran (2015)

Veteran was such a wild ride. It's a David and Goliath setup surrounded by great acting, great writing, and great characters that I felt really invested in. I watched this on a plane and got weird looks by the people sitting next to me when I sobbed and laughed at the same time.

Bottomline: A wild ride supplemented by stunning performances. I had an adrenaline high after I finished watching.

Acting: With a cast boasting names like Hwang Jung Min and Oh Dal Su it feels like you're watching real life play out in front of you. Yoo Ah In was a standout for me whose role I imagine wasn't an easy task since he was acting opposite Yoo Hae Jin. His performance as Cho Tae-Oh was spine-chilling but nuanced. He was a monster, but he had shades that were achingly human. It was a villainous role that made you angry at him but also for him and that's really a stunning feat.

Writing: I love adore crave stories like Veteran. Is it new or original? No. But the best thing about Veteran is that the script takes roles that have already been set and makes them human, makes them more. Everything is driven by them, their motivations, their desires. Hwang Jung Min could've played a good lawful cop who always does the right thing, but instead, the script throws that archetype right out the window in the stunning opening scene. They make him compelling: idealistic but realistic, someone who fights for what he believes in but in underhanded ways, a knight in rusty armor. Yoo Ah In could've played the spoiled son of a chaebol, an archetype we've seen a million times and then some. But here he plays someone so truly and deeply frightening that you think, this is what evil is. I read an interview where Director Ryu Seung-wan stated he wanted to look at the humans involved in this sort of story rather than the story itself. And the way he did is a beautiful thing to watch.

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It's important to remember that the point of movies and TV shows are, primarily, to entertain. Yes, there are shows that are less than entertaining, but have plenty of artistic value and originality. But movies that entertain and take you for a wild ride are probably the ones you'd talk about and recommend to your friends for weeks afterwards. Veteran is one of those movies.

The story is not original - a good and dogged cop chasing after an elusive villain. The characters themselves are not that original either. But the cast make this script an electrifying movie to watch. Hwang Jung Min is fantastic as an everyday-man kind of cop who is passionate about his job and genuinely cares about people. Yoo Ah-in pulls you in with his performance as a villain who you love to hate, yet can't help but find out more about. Yoo Hae-jin is a sidekick with a difference and he does a great job of it, as he does with all his other roles. Special shout-out to Jin Kyung, who puts in a great performance in any show she's cast in.

You can tell that the cast are having so much fun playing their characters, and it is infectious, because this show is a thoroughly entertaining ride. Yes, you are rooting for the good guys, but you are also excited to see what tricks the bad guys next pull out of their hats. For this reason, I think this show has a decent rewatch value.

Overall, greatly entertaining with outstanding performances by the cast.

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After I finished ''Veteran'' I was wondering what rating should I give it. After a few minutes of thinking, I decided that it didn't lack anything so I for the first time of my life I rated a movie with 10 out of 10. It was just way too good and I honestly don't even know why I was hesitating.

''Veteran'' is a mind-blowing masterpiece. It has phenomenal story, phenomenal directing, phenomenal characters and phenomenal acting. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, it makes your blood boil, your heart ache and it brings you a good laugh. It's a rollercoaster of emotions. It's everything one would want to see in a movie. The action scenes were brilliantly made and I even liked the sound effects (which I find very irritating in most action movies).

The acting was, as I said, phenomenal. I want to congratulate director Ryu Seung Wan for choosing the best cast ever. Hwang Jung Min was brilliant as Detective Seo Do Chul. You could see the anger, frustration, sadness through his eyes. Yo Ah In... man, what did you do? How could you portray such a disgusting psychopath that perfectly? How can an actor do that? How's it even possible? I'm speechless. Yoo Ah In is truly an acting god. I don't even know how to describe his performance here.

I HIGHLY recommend this movie to everyone, even to people who don't like action movies. Because I'm also not into this genre, but ''Veteran'' was way too perfect for me to care about genres.

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A Very Good Comedy/Action Film!

“Veteran” is just a plain, fun romp of an action/comedy film about a Metro detective who is hellbent on taking down the drug addict man who is the son of a wealthy corporate tycoon. The theme is a fairly common one of a wealthy man who believes that he’s untouchable and above the law. Plus, I needed something to get the bad taste of “King the Land” out of my mouth, and this movie more than fit the bill for me in that regard.

Detective Seo Do Cheol leads a band of misfit detectives on various sting operations. The film opens up with him taking down an auto theft ring, and the apprehension of the Russian and Korean criminals down on the docks is beyond hilarious! Watching Detective Bong howl like a Native American battle cry, and fly out of nowhere to take down one of the operatives, is one of the funniest moments of the scene as she ends up missing the guy entirely and knocking herself out.

Do Cheol finds out that a friend (Bae) who helped him with the sting operation is trying to get his back pay of wages that the corporation is refusing to pay him, and the sadistic, drug addict, Jo Tae Oh takes great delight in having Bae beaten in front of his young son and then covering up an attempted murder with a suicide ploy. Of course, Do Cheol doesn’t believe a word of it as he’s already experienced Jo Tae Oh’s sadistic side first-hand at a party where he delightfully abuses two women just for the sheer pleasure of it.

As we’ve seen countless times before in K-dramas and movies, the rogue detective finds himself up against the system, where he’s forced to deal with high-priced lawyers, corrupt police officers who are being paid, and even high political officials who all want Do Cheol to leave the case alone. Even his wife is approached by Jo Tae Oh’s lawyer and assistant with a purse filled with money as a payoff. However, Do Cheol refuses to back down and vows to do whatever it takes to uncover the truth and take Jo Tae Oh down.

Do Cheol is a skilled fighter, and an above-average detective, and Hwang Jung Min plays him perfectly. He’s a likable guy who seems to take abuse from everyone, from his superiors, his co-workers, and even his wife, who snaps at him as soon as he gets home from a long day.

Yoo Ah In gives us an equally riveting performance as the drug-crazed Jo Tae Oh, a man who delights in the pain of others. He wears a smile like the Joker and before you know it, he goes on rampages of rage and violence. We are given hints as to why he might be like this as his father, while not on drugs, is certainly ruthless and prone to violence himself. Jo Tae Oh believes he has to prove himself in order to be his father’s successor, but his cravings for violence end up being his undoing.
The only part of the movie that had me scratching my head was the end. During their showdown, Do Cheol allows himself to be beaten in order to secure an “assault on a police officer” charge, or even just a “resisting arrest” as their fight is in front of cameras and many spectators all recording the incident on their phones. While it made the fight more interesting, I didn’t understand why he would have to take such a beating. Perhaps the charge is different in Korea, which is why I sort of dismissed it. In the US, after Jo Tae Oh hits him with the first punch—which takes place after Do Cheol is already read him his rights—that would have been more than sufficient for the charge to stick.

Koreans are masters of combing and using different thematic and genre elements in their shows and movies. This movie has plenty of action, laugh-out-loud moments, and scenes that will have you cringing, and the film also gives viewers something to think about. Koreans love using entertainment as a means to try and invoke change. In this case, it’s about not allowing the wealthy to prey upon the poor or the helpless nor allowing the wealthy to simply buy their way out of prosecution. In short, nobody is above the law and everyone should be held accountable, no matter who they are or where they come from.

All in all, this movie was a lot of fun, and I’m already looking forward to Veteran 2!

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Action over substance

In theory, this was a really good story about a righteous detective going up against a corrupt chaebol, but the execution of the movie turned out kind of rambling and messy.

I spend a lot of time at the start trying to figure out who was who, and it definitely took a while for the story to get started.

All in all, this felt like a lot of action and not a lot of substance, and the actual detective work seemed to take up less time than hand-to-hand combat and physically running around after people, rather than using brains (which is usually what I prefer to see). The story turned out to be a lot more simple than I expected, which was a little disappointing, even though the action itself was really good and it held up.

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I can't wait for Veteran 2!

Rating 2015 movie in 2024 is probably not a fair evaluation since it's almost 10 years! What one finds fascinating back then is now boring. That's why I rate this based on how much I've enjoyed the show!

The storyline is predictable, but boy...the fighting scenes, especially the one near the end is SO GOOD to watch!

Plus, it's really funny...not in an over-the-top manner, but like well done comedy

I really enjoy the show. It has great balance of humour, action, justice.

I hesitated to watch initially as I don't know who the ML is, but turned out he is a pretty cool cop here.

I can't wait for Veteran 2!

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THAT GOOD OMG

The story is good, a policeman can already be said to be close to retirement but is still very totality to eradicate existing crimes.
For action, you can say it's pretty okay.
And for the comedy part, it's quite entertaining for me considering it's not a comedy genre but action, but I think it's funny and there's just their random behavior.
The story part of the cast touched me to their company, their behavior, loyalty is in my opinion the interesting point in this story.
This movie was released in 2015 yep ... It's been 8 years almost 9 years but it can still be enjoyed, there is no time limit that makes it too late to watch.

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I'm not a big fan of Korean movies for the simple fact that it takes them too long to get to the point and then there's nothing in between.
I've seen one, though, that had everything that I love in a movie and when I saw that this had the same premise I decided to watch.

The beginning was dry. There was no lead up to why the beginning was happening. It just happened. I was going to stop watching but it started getting interesting so I told myself to stick it out.

It turned out to be pretty good but here's why my overall score is low: the ending...it left me seething as Korean dramas usually do. The veteran cop was able to take down armies upon armies of fighters but he let the main villain beat him to a bloody pulp just because cameras was around. Throughout the whole movie this man disobeyed a lot of things but in the end he gets his a** whipped because of onlookers and cameras??? Plus it ended entirely too fast. Instead of showing the main bad people getting their just desserts they just rushed it along in a 'news' story which barely lasted 60 seconds and....that was it. The movie just ended. I was like, 'what??' I wasted almost two hours just to have it end that way???

Now this will really keep me from watching any movie Korean related.

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Joker Act

What an act by Yoo Ah In, he is scary, a villain to the core, like a Joker. He took on such a repulsive, despicable, and evil character and delivered a crazy superb act. Simply, NO ONE could have played Jo Tae Oh like that, it was iconic. Equally perfect was Hwang Jung Min, he struck a perfect balance against such a brilliant act of Ah In, and delivered a superb performance of his own. The entire cast was a top act, Yoo Hae Jin, Jung Woong In, Oh Dal Soo, and everyone. Hats off to Ryoo Seung Wan for screenwriting and direction, and again for the cast choices. I just wish he could've put some background depth to the story of the psychopathic Jo Tae Oh.

Add it to your watch list and you won't regret it. Once the first 10 minutes pass, you are up to some great acts. I would say some scenes were extreme and over the top, and the end might be a little bit rushed, but the cast performance A*.

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Excessive savagery, dull storyline, unrelatable characters and the villain one-sidedly runs the show

I'm writing this review mostly to help others manage their expectations before watching this movie.

It starts slow and confusing. You get to chuckle a couple of times before being introduced to one of the most unnecessarily inhumane scenes. The antagonist is a monster and the movie doesn't stop driving that home to the viewers. Not once, twice or even thrice seems to be enough.
With all the chaos going on all the time, this movie still manages to feel draggy. The somewhat amusing scenes start to feel flat. The finale itself seems to drag on and on. The ending is unsatisfying.

I'll mention a few positives at the end.

Before continuing, I'll just point out that I was most disappointed because I was expecting an action-comedy movie I could watch with my family. Nope. To sum it up: it's too brutal with little to no context or character development to the point it gets boring and forgetful.

Most relevant characters are barely acknowledged. The opening scene that's supposed to introduce us to team good guys is a mess. It's 99% skippable and unnecessary to the main plot. You only get a gist of who the main character is and his surroundings but get nothing substantial that makes you really root for this guy.
The antagonist is at such a crazy level of monstrosity that at some point you don't even want him on screen anymore. His scenes just show you over and over again how disgusting of a human being he is. All that screen time could have been used to flesh out other characters instead.
Somehow this movie makes you feel like a passive bystander instead of someone truly invested in the story. Even though you want justice, you don't really get attached to anything. You simply watch things unfold almost indifferently.

So, some positives before concluding.
I found the level of chaos in the conversations, confrontations and fight scenes gave it a less "staged" or "clean" feel than what we usually find in other movies. Sorta realistic in a way. But somehow still less entertaining. Ups, this is supposed to be the positives section...
If I have to say something else good about it, I guess the actors did a good job.

To boil it down to one problem: ultimately, you don't really care about the good guys, you just want the bad guy gone and feel sympathy towards the victims.

Watching the trailer, reading the synopsis and some comments, I imagined something completely different: something fun, clever, with great teamwork, sacrifice, high stakes, etc.
How could it be so lacklustre instead? The victory at the end doesn't really feel earned. Protagonist and antagonist have no chemistry. They could be facing other people and it would be the same. There are no character arcs. Every character remains the same from beginning to end. There are too many small and not-so-small details that just quickly fade away into the background. Any intended message gets buried underneath all the overbearing violence, yelling and overly fast switch between scenes.

Alright, I've ranted enough. Hope this is useful to someone.

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