Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Jo Pil-ho: The Dawning Rage’ on Netflix, a Gritty Korean Bad-Cop Drama

Netflix’s Jo Pil-ho: The Dawning Rage is a South Korean export originally titled, translated from its native tongue, Bad Police. What exactly “the dawning rage” is remains up for interpretation — or simply dismissed as nonsense, which, after watching this drama, you’ll realize is an equally viable option.

JO PIL-HO: THE DAWNING RAGE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Jo Pil-ho (Sun Kyun-Lee) is a homicide detective coated in a thin layer of skeeze. He spends more time using his badge to line his own pockets than actually, you know, investigating homicides. In the opening scene, one of his flunkies saws open the back of an ATM while Jo sits in his car.

“You got a motor mouth for a f*cktard with a micro johnson!” an officer from internal affairs says to Jo. They can smell something rotten, but haven’t quite pinned him down yet. Jo’s dough is tied up in a shady real estate deal, and he needs more, so he lines up a major score: robbing a police warehouse. In the middle of the heist, the place goes kablooey, killing Jo’s flunky. Wrong place, wrong time, and Jo finds himself tangled in a coverup involving the $780 million Taesung Group — which employs an enforcer (Park Hae-joon) who frequently tangles Joe in jiu jitsu joint locks.

The only thing keeping Jo alive is an incriminating video only he and one other person hold. He finds himself tracking, finding and going on the run with Mina (Jeon So-mi), a wayward teen who, coincidentally, also swiped a big sack of Jo’s cash. The plot uses her as a device for Jo to find the limit of his corruption, and his capacity for emotion. With their fates tied together, Jo has to decide whether to throw Mina under the bus to save his own ass, or maybe do the right thing for once.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Jo Pil-ho is culled from the same dirty-denim wardrobe of other corrupt-cop films — think Dark Blue, Narc, Training Day, etc. — and stitched to a snatch of high-level corporate-malfeasance drama a la Michael Clayton.

Performance Worth Watching: Kyun-lee is quite good as a man with a defective moral barometer. Jo is conniving, selfish and cowardly, but not hopeless, and Kyun-lee injects a cynical, nihilist streak into the character’s line readings. It’s sturdy, entertaining acting.

Memorable Dialogue: “I’m a goddamn loyal servant of the general public!” Jo Pil-ho says, swamping the ice cream sundae of his self-awareness in the chocolate syrup of sarcasm.

Single Best Shot: A striking use of shadow contrasted by vivid orange light: An injured teen girl hemorrhages in an underpass as Mina shouts for help.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: First things first: I kind of hated the ending. It’s obvious, ugly and contrived, and leaves a bad final impression. Which is unfortunate, considering the clever dynamic writer/director Lee Jeong-beom nurtures between Jo and Mina. Jo Pil-ho is the rare film with a second act that’s stronger than the first and third; it takes a while for Jeong-beom to arrange the pieces on the chessboard, but his story finally finds its footing when his two principals begin developing their complicated friendship.

Yet, a significant dramatic moment in the third act lacks the impact it should, indicating a lack of true emotional connection with these characters. Mina and Jo deserve better; maybe a few more details from their background would fill in some empathetic blank spots. And Jeong-beom doesn’t quite earn the film’s two-plus-hour runtime, which sometimes can be a lot to ask of an audience.

Oh, and I still don’t know what “the dawning rage” might be, besides something spat out by a random-movie-title generator.

Our Call: SKIP IT. This is a tough call, because the middle hour has many terrific moments. But a movie isn’t a collection of scenes — it needs to be consistent in character development, tone and pace, which Jo Pil-ho ultimately is not.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Jo Pil-Ho: The Dawning Rage on Netflix