Midnight Runners, is all you need after a hard week at work, to keep you entertained on a Friday night. It’s like chilling with Lemon or Lime Mojito, with a refreshing twist to kick-start your weekend and it would leave you with a sweet after taste.
There’s not just lotsa laughter, but also an eye feast (literally), with young, hot bods (6 packs, biceps, triceps) of 2 rising stars (Park Seo Joon & Kang Ha Neul) in Korea. 所谓的 “青春热血”，会让你血脉膨涨。
You get a bit of everything from action to comedy, visual aesthetics (no romance though), yet not excessively violent or bloody like many action-packed Korean movies may get. It’s pretty well-balanced and well-paced. It isn’t draggy and there’s no time for boredom.
As the title says it, there’s a lot, a lot of running during midnight. The action scenes are bound to keep you breathless while watching the guys sprint the way from long winding roads to narrow alleys. You can literally label them as “Running Men”.
You’d be laughing half the time with the hilarious things they do, yet it did not fall into the category of slapstick comedy.
If you are concerned that you may not be able to see those chiselled abs clearly, not to worry, the director has it all planned out for you. The 2 leads are very fit and Park Seo Joon’s in tip-top condition, since it was also around the same time that he filmed “Fight for My Way”.
I’m sure many ladies were trying to catch their jaws at the bare-top scenes.
The storyline may not be something out of the ordinary, but it’s the camaraderie of these 2 young actors that you will love. They complement each other just like how their 2 characters should.
Gi Jun (Park Seo Joon) is the brawns who’s full of passion and 正义感, while Hee Yeol (Kang Ha Neul) is the brain, who could always make his good friend obediently do his bidding.
There are no Hollywood car chasing scenes or car drifting. Our leads do not possess superhero powers as well. They also get bashed up badly by the gangsters who were better trained than them in the fighting scenes. It’s more of how they used their wits and kept training, in order to win the battle. In this sense, the movie makes it easier for audience to resonate with.
There’re some societal topics being brought out in the movie,
- Putting self before others, or vice versa?
In order to pass the test to enter the university, all recruits are supposed to run up and down the hill in 1 hour. However, all other recruits just by passed Hee Yeol who had sprained his ankle, except for Gi Jun, who piggy backed him down the hill. As policemen, they are supposed to put others before self. However, this should not be what a policeman should do in times when civilians are in danger.
- How materialistic people are these days. Before you decide to be friends with someone, you would assess their societal status.
This was illustrated through the scene whereby the guys applied for a day’s leave so that they could get to know more girls at a very popular club.
The young ladies would ask what their profession is and once they knew that they were students from the Korean National Police University, they decided not to befriend them since these guys would be poor all their lives as policemen.
- While it is important to follow law and protocol, in order to maintain order, the two recruits were caught in a dilemma where they could either wait for official police help (which would be too late) to save the kidnapped victims and risk their lives, or they risk being expelled from the police university should they try to break red tape and track the kidnappers down.
They are still not real policemen as yet, but they just could not bear the idea of the kidnapped victims being further tortured or killed by the kidnappers.
It’s something like, between doing something right or doing nothing but be moral-stricken? Would you challenge red tape and protocol if someone’s life is at stake?
Most importantly, these 2 lads had different personal reasons for joining the police force, but it wasn’t so much so of upholding justice at the beginning.
I guess, everyone would feel lost at certain points in their lives, when they did not understand the rationale of why they did what they were doing, or if they were really doing something that they love.
We all need to explore, to understand ourselves further.
年轻就是本钱。
It’s never too late to revive that fire in your heart, no matter what your passion or dream was/is.
You only live once, and you should not regret what you did not do.
There are dark moments but the light-heartedness of the friendship between the 2 leads, make it a very enjoyable journey to watch these recruits grow and mature in the movie.
This also marks the last movie for Kang Ha Neul before he enlisted into the army shortly after his Singapore promotions. Fans can have a prelude into how he would look like with the short hair in the army and we wouldn’t be surprised that he would survive well in the army. He’s got a contagious laughter and is well known for his 好男孩形象 in real life.
I have always enjoyed the dramas that Park Seo Joon acted in. He’s bound to bring you a lot of laughter, but also draw you in to his acting at the same time.
This movie is definitely worth a ticket to the cinema over the weekend.
I’m sure it’s not just for swooning female fans, the guys would like it too.
