TIFF23 REVIEW: 밀수 [Smugglers] [2023]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 129 minutes
Release Date: July 26th, 2023 (South Korea)
Studio: Next Entertainment World / XYZ Films
Director(s): Ryoo Seung-wan
Writer(s): Cha-won Choi, Ryoo Seung-wan & Kim Jung Youn

With newly opened factories killing marine life off the coast of a seaside village in South Korea circa 1970, local haenyeo (women free divers) are forced to look for work elsewhere unless they’re willing to break the law procuring a new inhabitant of the water: crates full of contraband. Currently sunk to the ocean floor, their owners are willing to pay fishermen top dollar to retrieve them when customs officials aren’t looking. Dive down, haul up, and pass off in the night.

It takes some cajoling, but Jin-sook (Yum Jung-ah) and Choon-ja (Kim Hye-su) finally get the former’s father to agree at the start of Seung-wan Ryu’s Smugglers. And for a spell, they seem untouchable. That’s what makes the sudden arrival of Chief Lee (Kim Jong-soo) so impossibly unexpected. By the time the dust settles, two members of the crew are dead and the rest in jail—all except Choon-ja, who barely escaped. Was it luck? Or planned?

Fast-forward two years and some heavy drama necessitates a reunion. Desperate to save her own hide, Choon-ja (now in Seoul) tells a ruthless smuggler (Zo In-sung’s Kwon) about her old stomping grounds and how they’re the perfect spot for underwater exchanges. Knowing the other women—especially Jin-sook—believe she informed on them, it’s not a simple matter of picking up where they left off. With her old protégé Hammer (Jeong Min Park) now in charge, he can hopefully become a buffer to smooth things over.

A lot can happen in such a short time, though. Hammer can lose himself to his new power. Lee can consolidate his own with a greedy streak of self-indulgence. Even Boon (Min-Si Go) evolves from waitress to tearoom owner. The only thing that remains the same is the village’s poverty. Maybe that will be enough to make Jin-sook be civil. She needs Kwon’s job as much as Choon-ja. The question is whether these women can find a way to trust each other again since they have the ability to pit everyone else against themselves while grabbing control together.

The opening act’s exposition can be somewhat of a slog, but that’s to be expected when you’re talking about a two-hour-plus film. Afterwards, however, the entertainment level and pace pick up without ever slowing back down. Zo helps as an electric villain whose smile only grows as the violence escalates—especially during an extended, close-quarters hotel knife brawl. An underwater action sequence fails to match that fight’s energy, but it bridges the gap with climactic tension once a shark gets thrown in the mix.

Besides those two extended sequences, Smugglers is otherwise dialogue-driven with a healthy dose of secrets and betrayals as Jin-sook and Choon-ja position themselves to control their own fate. Pulling for them is easy too considering they never compromise their priorities: life above money. The journey proves an effective popcorn flick with nice production value (the period aesthetic is a highlight) that only falters when some water scenes expose green screen limitations (if such issues weren’t the screener’s fault).