The Villagers releases on Digital on October 7 from Well Go USA
Don Lee continues to be one of the hottest stars working in film today – an accomplishment hard-earned in large part with the success of The Roundup cop franchise. Between other film and drama ventures both current and pending, his 2018 stint in Lim Jin-soon’s “Ordinary People” is now getting a long-awaited reissue in the U.S. with the new title, The Villagers, a tale still very much ripe for the taking.
Lim directs from his own script the story of Ki-chul (Lee) a former boxing coach ousted from his organization, and is instead rehired as a dean and gym teacher at a school in a small village where a new gubernatorial race is underway. As The Villagers unfolds however, there’s more at stake than politics as Ki-chul tries to acclimate to an uneasy environment of students full of angst, and a teaching staff more concerned with putting on appearances and maintaining façades than engaging their clearly troubled students, namely the beleagured Yu-jin (Kim Sae-ron) who’s been pounding the pavement for days in search of a friend who suddenly disappeared.
Compelled to help Yu-jin in her quest in the only by-the-book way can, Ki-chul works his best to get his colleagues and local law enforcement to act on some modicum of urgency, albeit to little avail. Little do they know that as the truth emerges behind the girl’s disappearance, their tenacity will place them both in the reach of dangerous criminal elements corrupting both sides of the law, forcing Ki-chul and the few allies left in his corner to help bring justice to the village, even if he has to punch his way through to do it.
Well Go USA’s release of The Villagers couldn’t come at a more opportune time as fans of the film’s hard-hitting star await future Roundup films and other ventures like Lee Sang-yong’s Pig Village, while possibly enjoying the current run of KBS2/Disney+ Korea/Hulu series, “Twelve.” The Villagers comes with a decent runtime allowing plenty of space for story and character development to couple with the kind of cerebral thrills that don’t burn too slowly for things to stay steady, and you have to credit Lee and Lim for that effort, in particular. We get a character in Ki-chul who overcompensates for his size and looks by being as antithetical as he can to the perceptions of others, even when he gets told to do the same by some of his incorrigible students. He’s courteous, polite, respectful to a fault, and puts authority first, and when neither of these are optional under peculiar circumstances, evidently, his fists do the talking, and they sure don’t stutter.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up Kim’s work here, albeit released to Korean audiences seven years prior to her death and only now making headway in the West following what would be her final screen appearance in Netflix series, “Bloodhounds”. That role served as an evolution to a still-flourishing career that suffered a major setback in 2022, and what earnestly should have been subject to a return to fruition considering how amazing she was. Kim’s last and posthumous feature film turnout in The Villagers stands evocative of this fact, with a character clearly out-muscled in this line-up, but equally strong in her will to help make a friend whole. She says one of the best lines of the film in a scene where Ki-chul tries to convince her to focus on growing up.
The film also proffers a sturdy crop of co-stars in Jang Gwang, Jin Sun-kyu, and Lee Sang-yeob among whom help construct the millieu of uncertainty in the world director Lim presents in his film, along with co-starring actress Shin Se-hwi, and actor Oh Hee-joon who plays an old acquaintant of Ki-chul’s. It’s also roughly a little over forty minuntes until Lee finally starts punching people after the film’s opening sequences, but even so, The Villagers won’t leave you hanging. It bodes as a steady DIY crime procedural that offers plenty of action beats amid the drama, and with a finish hearty enough to earn your approval.
