A Hard Day (2014)

"A Hard Day" is a Korean production confirming (yet again ...) that if you look today over the Asian cinema you can find movies with a much clever script than the average of the Hollywood mainstream. What we have here is somewhere between a thriller and a dark comedy where the humor is sometimes dry, but for who had previous experience with the Korean cinema should be clear that's something typical. The story starts with a crooked cop from a crooked department who hits a guy on the road at night in an apparently fatal crash, while driving to set up the funeral arrangements for his mother. Meanwhile a nocturnal internal affairs raid takes over his office, and his daughter left in his custody after divorce keeps asking him on the phone for a chocolate cake. Getting back to his most pressing problem, the "apparently fatal" accident doesn't mean the victim will rise from dead - but I'm not gonna tell more ... I just thought that the trailer might make you think that "you know the story" and maybe a hint will help to the answer that "no, you don't".

It's a Korean thriller, so you can expect violence. I think the degree is acceptable compared to others. The series of unfortunate events that keep coming after the main character may seem taking exaggerate turns towards the end, but again ... it's at an acceptable level (and if you think something's a bit over the top, remember that "comedy" is listed among genres). Probably the worst minus I noticed is the ... title. It's completely random considering you can't even tell which "day" was more "hard", but doesn't matter that much ...

Rating: 4 out of 5