A lot of the reviews compared The Suspect to Bourne movies. That's more than fair. The story is similar (corruption in high places), and especially the fighting and the action sequences remind one of Bourne (it's not really kung-fu). There's two brilliant car chases that would easily be in a car chase top ten and some classic images, such as a tense scene on a cargo boat seen from above, the hero hanging from a cliff or actually being hung, and the hero rooftop-flying through densely populated suburbs of Seoul. It's just about entirely in Seoul though, so doesn't have the international pedigree of Bourne or Bond. The score is similar to Bourne or the Christian Bale Batman movies, though doesn't ever move to high energy popular tunes as with the Moby car-chase sequence in Bourne. The Suspect is very easy on the eye, with good looking actors, wonderful cameras and editing, and plenty of great shots of many aspects of a crowded Seoul. It has a huge cast, is fast and non-stop, and is definitely big budget. There are mind-boggling crowd and traffic scenes. It's just as professional and interesting in its skullduggery one on one scenes too. I'd love to give it a 10, but for someone whom doesn't speak Korean, well, the story was really complicated, to a point where most of us might still have questions as to what the essential secret actually was, and a lot of the dialogue was snarling sarcasm. Maybe that was an aspect that really appealed to specifically Koreans. The ending had me, brilliantly, in tears. It was totally original and well worth the extra length of the movie. On my dvd there were a few promos for other similar Korean movies. I've also heard from the radio that Korea is now producing some wonderfully original and engaging TV dramas (look up Netflix), and not just in the action genre. All up The Suspect is very good news indeed.
Review of The Suspect
