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James Marsh

3/5 stars
The true measure of humanity’s beauty, or lack thereof, is explored in The Ugly. It marks the first cinematic release in five years from Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho, who has recently put most of his energy into making films and TV dramas for Netflix, such as Revelations and Hellbound.
Returning to the more grounded social dramas upon which he first made his name, this adaptation from Yeon’s own graphic novel, Face, reopens a cold case of murder that reaches back decades into South Korea’s grim and troubled past.
Blind since birth, Yeong-gyu (Kwon Hae-hyo) has never allowed his disability to hold him back, and has enjoyed a long and respected career as a carver of bespoke engraved seals – “chops” as they are known in Hong Kong.


Ownership of Yeong-gyu’s studio has passed to his son, Dong-hwan (Park Jeong-min), who invites a film crew led by ambitious producer Su-jin (Han Ji-hyeon) to document his father’s story.
Su-jin’s benign puff piece takes a dark turn, however, when Dong-hwan learns that the skeletal remains of his mother, Young-hee, who disappeared 40 years earlier, have been found on a remote hilltop.
Having never laid eyes on her, Dong-hwan is eager to investigate, and Su-jin uses her journalistic nous to seek out Young-hee’s family and former employees.
What they uncover is an increasingly disturbing and tragic tale of an ostracised and abused young woman whose kind heart and virtuous nature were eschewed because of her apparently hideous physical appearance.

Dong-hwan and Su-jin make for intriguing partners, as their motives are set at cross purposes almost from the get-go.
Dong-hwan searches simply for closure about his mother: how she died, what happened at the rundown garment factory where she met his father, and most importantly what she looked like, regardless of everything he is told.
Su-jin, conversely, has caught a whiff of a more sensational story than Yeong-gyu’s artisanal talents – one of corrupt business owners, rampant sexual abuse and murder.
Yeon sets up a fascinating premise: an unlikely pair of detectives and a frequently surprising story of two downtrodden outcasts finding protection in one another against the ugliness that surrounds them.

He also toys with his audience by only shooting Young-hee from behind, so as to conceal her true appearance and leave us sceptical of the persistent rumours.
Where the film falls down spectacularly, however, is by failing to reconcile these intriguing threads into a satisfying conclusion. Yeon’s ending proves neither cathartic nor purposefully ambiguous, failing to mete out true justice for the victims or draw meaningful parallels between the past and present.
The Ugly leaves its audience saddened yet also frustrated, and the guilty resolutely unpunished.
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Park Jeong-min, Kwon Hae-hyo and Han Ji-hyeon star in Train to Busan director Yeon’s first cinematic release in five years


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Park Jeong-min, Kwon Hae-hyo and Han Ji-hyeon star in Train to Busan director Yeon’s first cinematic release in five years

Park Jeong-min, Kwon Hae-hyo and Han Ji-hyeon star in Train to Busan director Yeon’s first cinematic release in five years