Review: The Truck

Widowed truck driver Yu Hae-Jin finds out that his beloved seven year-old daughter (Lee Jun-ha) is plagued with a hereditary heart defect and is now in hospital after collapsing from too much physical exertion. She will need expensive heart surgery- $60 000, and the poor, single, working man hasn’t got that kind of cash. He cleans out his savings, borrows from loan sharks, and then a friend tells him about a poker game that he’ll conspire to help him win by signalling one another. He agrees to go along with it, and before you know it, he’s lost all his money, his pal has screwed him over, and in pursuing said scumbag pal, he walks in on a mob boss (Kim Jun-bae) who has just finished murdering a few people. The mob boss agrees to square things with poor Yu Hae-Jin, so long as he agrees to transport the corpses to a remote lake to be dumped. He agrees to do so. Along the way he finds a wrecked police vehicle and several dead bodies. Very much alive is Jin Gu, who claims to be a police officer who was one of several transporting a dangerous serial killer, who is nowhere to be seen. Our hero agrees to give Jin Gu a lift, but soon finds out that this guy isn’t who he claims to be, and he is seated right next to a dangerous psycho, with no way of alerting the authorities (lest they should uncover his load of corpses).

On the surface of things, you could probably say that this 2008 Hyeong-jin Kwon thriller is a mixture of “Roadgames” (Truck driver transporting pigs) and “The Hitcher” (serial killer hitching a ride, messing with his chauffeur with sick games), but ultimately there are only passing similarities to those films. I love “The Hitcher” in particular, moreso than this film actually, but there’s a lot more drama here that wasn’t featured in that streamlined cult classic. This poor guy just wants to save his ailing daughter, and things just keep spiralling out of control for the poor fella. And it serves to give this film an identity of its own (think of it as Murphy’s Law played out on our unfortunate protagonist), it’s really a solid film in its own right. The cute widdle kid certainly helps. It still ranks as a B-movie, but if you think that’s a bad thing, then I pity you.

Terrific performances, especially by Jin Gu as the handsome killer, the impressive (and alarmingly funny) Kim Jun-bae as the violent mob boss, and adorable Lee Jun-ha as the little girl who is cute even when she’s being all stroppy. In fact, it’s a shame she’s not in the film more. Jin Gu isn’t exactly Rutger Hauer (Yu Hae-Jin is certainly an upgrade from C. Thomas Howell, though) but he’s suitably cool and detached, played a true, remorseless sociopath whose sick intentions are only slowly revealed.

Admittedly the film at first looks like it doesn’t know where it’s going, but it’s still good stuff and never boring. Lots of creepy twists and turns and quite bloody at times too. The cinematography by Hwang Dong-guk is damn good stuff, with terrific scenery. Even the rain is made to look beautiful here, and I’m decidedly not a fan of wet weather.

With a screenplay by Hyung-Mo Jang, his is nothing earth-shatteringly innovative, but does every film have to be? Can’t movies just be entertaining genre fun? Well this certainly is. Professionally done all round, and a must for lovers of Asian thrillers and genre movies in general.

Rating: B-