Review of the film "Charisma" (1996) by NapoleonDinamitte

19.03.2021NapoleonDinamitte

I'm not yet familiar enough with Korean cinema to consider "Charisma" in a retrospective manner, they say, this is what the art of the Land of Morning Freshness was like before the Korean New Wave, and now, they say, let’s look at the table of comparison of films of the pre-wave, wave and post-wave eras according to ten criteria... Therefore, everything that I will say further regarding the comparison of Koreas of the 90s and the 21st century, has the status of “probably”.

Unfortunately, before the New Wave (which ran from approximately 1998-2003), Korea produced few action films. So that you understand how little... approximately the same amount as Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan combined gave to the world in the same era. And to even greater regret, only two representatives reached the Russian-speaking audience - "Charisma" и "Terrorist" (and even then, I call the latter a conditionally militant). Having watched them, as well as about fifteen Korean action films of the 21st century, I note: as a result of the New Wave, the national doctrine of the drama of crime cinema remained the same, but the action changed irrevocably, spoiler - not for the better.

Incidentally, "Charisma" can be divided into these two parts: dramatic and combat. At first the film is languid, like a walk through a summer forest at five in the morning. Kim finds love, the mafia encroaches on his love, Kim suffers - watching this, ahem, process is not entirely uncompromisingly boring, but let's just say that pleasant words about the film are clearly not addressed to the dramatic part. But as soon as the heat began to set in, and the train of violence set off towards massacre, it became clear that the melancholy of the first fifty minutes was a time bomb. Next, the celebration of the saying “and there is only one warrior in the field, if he is tightly tailored” unfolds. And precisely thanks to the preliminary melancholy, the battle of the loner Kim against a horde of gangsters sinks into the soul even more sharply than the similar heroism of Iko Uwais in "Raid 2". Atlas was tied up, strangled, tormented, but at some point they got Atlas out - and his revenge will be terrible. Yes, he is alone, and armed only with a knife, but he has something that none of the bandits attacking him has - fatigue, desperate fatigue from the shackles of lawlessness. Atlas straightened his shoulders, and now his stiff limbs crave sudden movements.

Yes, actually, the action... it's great in two aspects. The first is the notorious connection with dramatic parallel: the viewer does not just see the fight, he reads between the lines who Kim is and what he is fighting for; Each blow missed by the hero hits a nerve, but the next thug who falls at the hands of Atlas causes an attack of catharsis, which smoothly spreads through the blood, like the warmth of a home. The second aspect is the originality of the choreography, I would call the style... street taekwondo. The unique interaction of fighters, fights like this were not staged anywhere before Korea in the 90s, and, alas, they were not staged after either. High kicks do not look pretentious or artificial in Hong Kong style, no, they are convincing, they are organic in the context of everyday survival in hand-to-hand combat. You believe in Kim’s strikes, as they say, and comments regarding the high energy consumption of jumping and throwing legs lose relevance in the abyss of the sharpness and effectiveness of Atlas’ attacks. The editing does not fail, and the cinematography sometimes takes too close-up shots, but the grounding of the frame is clearly not lost. This is not “Deliver Us from Evil,” no, “Charisma” was made by people who had a clear understanding of what action is and what they eat it with.

Years passed, although globalization spared melancholy, it left no trace of identity in the field of action. There is still emotion in Korean fights, but the pursuit of realism has burned the beauty of taekwondo to the ground, and the epidemic of epilepsy has blurred the slightest hint of clarity of movements. The world of action films has lost that same Korea forever, without having had time to really find it and try it out. That's how things are, brother.