NOCTURNAL (브로�) (2025)

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Kim Jin-hwan
Cast: Ha Jung-woo, Kim Nam-gil, Yoo Da-in, Jung Man-sik, Lim Sung-jae
Runtime: 1 hr 49 mins
Rating: NC16 (Some Nudity & Violence)
Released By: Golden Village
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 27 February 2025

Synopsis: Min-tae, a once-notorious gangster who now leads a peaceful retired life, discovers the bloody corpse of his only next of kin: his younger brother Seok-tae. With his brother’s missing wife Moon-young as the prime suspect, Min-tae uncovers a suspicious last phone call between her and a mysterious novelist, sparking a vicious hunt for the truth despite his seemingly deceitful former crime syndicate and the police in hot pursuit.

Movie Review:

Nocturnal comes on the back of a long line of illustrious neo-noir revenge thrillers from South Korea, and this is also why it is all the more disappointing.

On the surface, it appears to be more than just your run-of-the-mill thriller, what with a university lecturer cum novelist Ho-ryeong (Kim Nam-gil) whose bestselling book had somehow portended the fate of lowlife gangster Seok-tae (Park Jong-hwan); unfortunately, after sitting through a one-and-a-half hour slow-burn that never manages to pick up enough pace, we can tell you that it is ultimately a red herring.

In fact, that much is established by the time the first act is over, following a confrontation between Ho-ryeong and odd-job construction worker Min-tae (Ha Jung-woo) at Seok-tae’s wife Moon-young’s apartment after his untimely death. The opening scenes show Seok-tae fleeing a secluded house in the woods high on drugs and seeking refuge at Moon-young’s karaoke joint, before he disappears for days and is found with his legs missing in a pond in a park. Shortly after, Moon-young also goes missing, and although there is some hint Ho-ryeong might know more about the crime that he is letting up, that bit of suspense fizzles out too quickly when the focus in the latter two acts shifts to Moon-young as the prime suspect.

What ensues is a cat-and-mouse chase that gets tired and monotonous over time, as both Min-tae and Ho-ryeong try to track down Moon-young. Min-tae’s motive for doing so is clear – he simply wants revenge for his younger brother, especially after bits of conversation and a flashback shows how he had abandoned his former life for the sake of protecting his brother; however, the same cannot be said of Ho-ryeong, whose objective of going after Moon-young is unclear beyond just plain curiosity, following a previous interview she had given him where she had spoken about how Seok-tae had been physically aggressive to her and her intention to kill Seok-tae.

None of the characters are sufficiently defined for us to care enough about them, even for that matter Moon-young, whose role in Seok-tae’s killing is only revealed in the third act. Most glaringly, beyond the fact that he loves his brother, it is never quite clear what drives Min-tae to perpetuate such wanton acts of violence against those who stand in his way of finding Seok-tae’s murderer; in fact, when he hauls in an LPG tank and threatens an elderly husband and wife pair at their unassuming restaurant, you cannot help but feel his actions are reprehensible.

Nor for that matter does the plotting eventually justify your patience at the end – we must say that when the truth of what happened to Min-tae is finally revealed, not only is it not surprising, it is also annoying just how everything that had happened before was just to hoodwink us from what is a straightforward killing. We won’t spoil it for you, but suffice to say that the reason why Seok-tae had fled was that he thought he had murdered the son of a powerful CEO named Mr Han at the house, the latter of whom has the same connections to the mob that Seok-tae belongs to.

Coming after such luminaries as The Chaser, New World and The Gangster, The Cop and the Devil, Nocturnal is sadly – but completely – overshadowed by its predecessors. Even if we wanted to be generous to writer-director Kim Jin-hwang, who is only into his sophomore feature film, it is difficult to think of any truly redeeming qualities within this derivative and tedious revenge flick. Like we said, there is absolutely nothing and no one within to root for, so you’re probably better off rewatching some of them other classics from the past.

Movie Rating:

(Derivative, unimaginative and tedious, this latest neo-noir revenge thriller offers nothing and no one within to root for, and is even frustrating for misleading its audience for thinking that there is more to it than there really is) 

Review by Gabriel Chong