Spiritwalker: South Korean Body-Swapping Martial Arts Fantasy is Ambitiously Ambiguous
By Karen Gordon
Rating: B-minus
There’s a clever idea at the center of Spiritwalker, the South Korean martial arts/noir/action movie with a sci-fi/fantasy edge. But the film’s ambitions make it the kind of film that should be watched more once to overcome confusion.
A man wakes up and takes in his surroundings. He’s on the ground, leaning against the door of his car, which has come to a stop on the sidewalk. He’s bleeding from a gun wound in his shoulder, and the only person around is a “hobo,” who is going through the car looking for things to steal.
The man has no idea who he is, and is even more confused when he catches his reflection.
Yoon Kyesang tries to beat the truth of his body-hopping ordeal out of another “self.”
The amnesia is just the beginning of his troubles. With only very few clues, he starts to piece together who he is and why he was shot.
Then adding to the confusion (his and ours) he changes bodies every 12 hours.
The identities of the people whose bodies he finds himself in aren’t random. He seems to shift into the body of someone in his immediate vicinity, which, as the film goes on, turns out to be a group of underworld figures dealing in shoot ‘em ups, martial arts battles, and a very expensive, very funky new drug.
Bit by bit, he figures out who he might be, who he is, and who is important to him, And then he has to figure out how to keep those important to him, alive.
Writer-director Yoon Jae-geun is onto a really interesting idea here. Spiritwalker plays like a mash up of The Bourne identity, Memento (minus the tattoos), and The Hangover (minus the humour).
The film, which was a hit in Korea, demands more than one viewing to get right. As our amnesiac leaps from person to person, he’s not only engaging with the other people involved with this violent gang, but he’s also trying to figure out what’s going on, and what happened to him (or who he thinks he is), and trying find his girlfriend (Lim Ji-Yeon) to save her.
From what I can tell, Yoon has done a pretty good job of working the story beats out, even creating a clever way to indicate whose body our hero is in this time.
But, even still, there’s a lot to follow. The story comes at us, as the hero picks up bits and pieces. But we’re asked to hold onto those moments, as the story is broken up with fight sequences, different locations, etc.
As well this isn’t a high tech production, or a high budget affair, and so there are some problems: a few uneven points in the plot, funky art direction, and clumsy moments on the part of some of the actors and the director.
Although, you can admire the effort that Yoon has taken in putting this complex story together, it’s likely more of interest to fans of the martial arts genre, than a general audience.
Spiritwalker, written and directed by Yoon Jae-geun. Starring Yoon Kyesang, Park Yong-woo and Lim Ji-yeon.
Available April 12, on the martial arts streaming service Hi-YAH!, on digital platforms and Blu-ray.