Escape (2024) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: for every explosion
Take a Drink: for signs of South Korean or Western culture north of the border
Take a Drink: for each escape preparation or attempt
Do a Shot: whenever one fails
By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers) –
There have been plenty of Korean fish out of water dramas and action films where a North Korean, usually an uptight soldier or spy, finds himself in the South. Rarer, though, are Korean films set fully in the North.
Escape is exactly what it says it is, a film about a North Korean soldier doing his highly capable, well-prepared damndest to defect across the border to South Korea. It’s not an easy task despite all of that.
A Toast
Director Lee Jong-pil’s clockwork procedural opening of our hero (Lee Je-hoon) paving the way for his escape across the border sets a thrilling, precise tone that hardly ever lets up. He’s on the cusp of fulfilling his clearly long in the works plan when a younger recruit realizes what he’s doing and tries to tag along.
Things don’t get better from there, as he goes from being caught in the act to being lionized as a hero for preventing the escape of the recruit when it’s deemed more politically expedient to have a more positive story to tell higher ups than “two more men tried to desert”. Yes, there’s some quality lampooning of the rich and powerful military and social forces that run North Korea like their personal feudal fiefdoms.
Lee is easy to root for in his determination and cool competence, while Koo Kyo-hwan’s lisping, giggling, and cocky high society villain may have been a cliche or even offensive (he’s got his own secrets) if not done so well. Their ending showdown has some intriguing psychological angles for just this reason, finding character work in the middle of what had been up to this point a pure thriller (don’t worry, there’s a bit more of that before we’re done as well).
Beer Two
The sunny K-Pop-scored flashbacks to a more youthful, better time are a bit overwrought, a little too K-Drama for the more otherwise serious proceedings surrounding them.
Verdict
Escape is a propulsive mad dash for freedom that barely stops to breathe as it traverses the North Korean borderlands.
