Detective K: Secret of Virtuous Widow 조선명탐정: 각시투구꽃의 비밀

Story

Joseon dynasty, Korea, 1782. In the 16th year of the reign of King Jeong-jo (Nam Seong-jin), the country's stability is threatened by massive corruption as the king struggles to control the conservative faction in government. He appoints his closest friend (Kim Myeong-min) to investigate, appointing him 5th Senior Official Detective. After solving the murder of a man, Park Bong-dal (Yu Hyeon-sang), by a corrupt official he had threatened to expose, the official is found dead in prison. The detective finds traces of wolfbane pollen around the entry wound and decides to go to Jeok-seong where the poisonous flower is grown. However, the detective is mistakenly imprisoned for the official's murder, and only manages to escape thanks to a dog thief, Han Seo-pil (Oh Dal-su), who's also been imprisoned. The king publically chastises the detective, and assigns him to the routine job of researching the case of a virtuous widow, Kim Ah-yeong, who committed suicide after her husband's death, to consider whether she deserves to be commemorated. But as the king knows, the case just happens to be in Jeok-seong. On the eve of leaving with Han Seo-pil, the detective is asked by Minister Im (Lee Jae-yong) to proceed carefully on the case - as the dead widow was Im's niece-in-law - and also to ensure the restoration of Confucian values that have been "smeared with dirt by the Christians". In Jeong-seok, the detective soon suspects local trade magnate Master Han (Han Ji-min) of being involved in high-level government embezzlement, and finds that the case of the dead widow is also connected.

Review

Only four months after the release of the Chinese Detective Dee (狄仁杰之通天帝國) comes Detective K, South Korea's bid to establish its own franchise with a costume sleuth. But where Dee was based (if thinly) on a real-life character, K is pure fiction - adapted from a book by historical novelist Kim Tak-hwan (김탁환) - and is a long way from the flashy big-budgeter directed by Hong Kong's Tsui Hark (徐克). Working on a considerably larger canvas than his first film, the 2006 romantic comedy-drama Old Miss Diary (올드미스 다이어리), former TV director Kim Sok-yun (김석윤) keeps the pot bubbling with regular action sequences and plenty of likable comedy, and his technical crew provide a solid 18th-century setting, but the script is not very well structured as a mystery, and the plot is explained in clumps of voice-over rather than organically growing with clues like a proper whodunit. It's also a relatively modest production compared with Dee, and lacks a cohesive musical score.

In the main role Kim Myeong-min (김명민, the vengeful father in crime thriller Man of Vendetta 파괴된 사나이) hits a nice note between arrogant, Sherlock Holmes-like genius and bumbling hero, and is well partnered by veteran Oh Dal-su (오달수) as his Sancho Panza-like sidekick. It's this chemistry that holds the movie together while other roles - Han Ji-min's (한지민) vampy businesswoman, Nam Seong-jin's (남성진) benign king, Lee Jae-yong's (이재용) cool villain - come and go.

Unnamed in the film - whose main Korean title simply means Joseon's Famous Detective - the sleuth has been given the title Detective K (=Kim? =Korea?) for international markets. But the movie is not South Korea's first attempt at a costume detective story: Kim Dae-seung's (김대승) much darker Blood Rain (혈의 누, 2005), set in the 19th century and also revolving around hatred towards Christians, spun a more engrossing and bloody web of mystery, even though its plot was confusingly structured. Detective K is much lighter, and also contains a clever twist near the end regarding one of the main characters; as a pure piece of entertainment, rather than as a whodunit, it slides down easily - which probably explains its sizable local success. Another reason could be that, as in several other movies from South Korea (where a third of the population is Christian), Confucianism is portrayed negatively but Christianity in a glowingly positive light.