South Korean director Seung-wan Ryoo‘s The Unjust is an entertaining, unwieldy crime thriller, throwing flawed cops, power-hungry prosecutors and vicious mobsters into a pressure cooker of steely action and way too many plot twists.

A serial killer has been preying on the schoolchildren of Seoul. The President of South Korea demands results, and a plausible suspect is cornered, shot and killed. Case closed – but not everyone is satisfied. Enter Captain Choi Cheol-gi, (Hwang Jung-min), who is charged with making a media spectacle of the case. In return, he’ll get the fat promotion he’s been repeatedly denied. Having made it a mission of his to crack down on corrupt businessmen and landowners, Choi now has to turn to Jang Seok-gu (Yoo Hae-jin,who plays the role like a snarling hyena), a mobster who bought his way into the upper echelons of respectable property tycoons. Jang provides Choi with more suspects, and will torture a confession out of them when needed.

All of this places Choi in a tenuous position as Jang is also engaged in an all-out land-bidding war against the corrupt CEO Kim, which in turn drags prosecutor Joo Yang (Ryoo Seung-bum) into the fray. As Yang’s benefactor, Kim demands that the prosecutor bring Choi to heel, only to find that the live-wire (and frequently screaming) Yang is beyond his – or anyone’s – control.

Crisply shot by cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung (the genius who also filmed Oldboy and Lady Vengeance), The Unjust renders the city of Seoul as a viper pit of corruption. The pacing is so whiplash-fast that the audience just barely has enough time to absorb every twist of screenwriter Hoon-jung Park‘s tightly-wound plot. According to director Ryoo, this story has been knitted together from various real-life corruption scandals which have plagued South Korea’s capital. It’s a bold, ballsy indictment of casually sociopathic businessmen and their judicial pawns, who in turn toy with hard-working police officers like Choi… and even they aren’t above planting evidence or cooking up a mob shootout to save their hides.

The lead actors turn in solid performances, with Jung-min underplaying the role of Choi as a stolid, repressed man who abandons his principles almost without noticing. Hae-jin and Ryoo Seung-bum play dark reflections of each other – both characters tend to fly off into a fit of rage just to get a point across to underlings.

Since I viewed this from a screener, I was provided with subtitles which seemed transcribed by someone with a less-than-fluent grasp of English. Characters are frequently saying things like “I senses your understanding now” (with the punctuation frequently missing). This prevented the rich depth of these characters from really coming across. As is, it’s a stylish, fascinating study of how far so-called men of the law will go to gain power – or protect what little they have.

The Unjust screened at the New York Asian Film Festival, ending today.

Grade: B-

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