Review | Cannes 2024: I, the Executioner (Veteran 2) movie review – Hwang Jung-min, Jung Hae-in lead superior thriller sequel
- Box office blockbusters too often get lame follow-ups. That’s not the case with Ryoo Seung-wan’s sequel to Veteran. It’s more action-packed and has more to say
- Hwang Jung-min plays hard-boiled detective Do-cheol, whose team, including Jung Hae-in as Sun Woo, is tasked with protecting a paroled thug from a vigilante
4/5 stars
Upping the stakes from the first instalment in nearly every department, I, the Executioner is a crowd-pleasing juggernaut that warns against the perils of populism, takes violence to task – and takes viewers on a white-knuckle roller coaster ride.
Ryoo’s film, which premiered in the Midnight Screenings section at the Cannes Film Festival, begins with a remarkably choreographed sequence featuring bone-crunching fist fights, groin kicks and police officers debating their children’s tuition fees while they pursue crime suspects.
Leading the charge through the mayhem is Do-cheol (Hwang Jung-min), who was last seen battling an amoral multimillionaire in Veteran. This time, the rough-edged detective’s nemesis is Haechi, a self-styled vigilante targeting people who are believed to have got off lightly for their bad deeds.
Do-cheol and his team are soon caught in the public cross hairs when they are ordered to protect a paroled thug from Haechi.
A hard-boiled cop who has seen his share of acquitted felons, Do-cheol somehow finds himself siding slightly with Haechi. His values are muddied further when his son is punished for lashing out at the bullies at school.
With Ryoo dropping hints about a killer nearly from the get-go, Haechi’s real identity is hardly a surprise. More surprising are the admittedly adrenaline-fuelled and action-heavy film’s relatively nuanced views about the rogue justice meted out in response to moral panic online.
Do-cheol’s early rumblings of approval for vigilantism are soon tempered by his distaste at the sight of lynch mobs screaming for the reinstatement of capital punishment. “Is there something like a right murder or a wrong murder?” he barks.
In a performance that conveys Do-cheol’s complexity – he is a fighting machine when confronting culprits, yet acts like a rabbit caught in the headlights when faced with his superiors, his wife and his detractors – Hwang provides I, the Executioner with a beating heart, something that elevates the film beyond its brasher and more vacuous counterparts.
