Fridae

It's a cinematic convention in Korean film that the police are corrupt and incompetent at investigations, given to bullying suspects into confessions when they need a crime solved, badgering witnesses into retracting unfavourable statements when they don't see a crime was committed. And because the #1 suspects are already guilty in the minds of the community, the police end up letting the real killers get away time after time.

The Scent is set very much in this noir-ish Korean universe but instead of a black comedy disguised as a crime film with social commentary, it plays the noir conventions to the hilt. Our protagonist is an enterprising officer who, during his suspension from the force, earns easy money as a gumshoe detective specialising in adultery cases for spurned housewives. But the sting operation before his reinstatement to the force that will be his undoing, as his client is found in a pool of blood in his hotel bed and her husband is found dead next door with a screaming, horrified dame who thinks he did it. There's a femme fatale who needs his help to get out of this mess and who might help him get out of his, yet she's the one whom he shouldn't really trust, not especially since there's that one little detail about her that he sees but doesn't notice that spells doom for him.

Like the best Korean directors, Kim Hyung-jin has found a fine balance between outright farce and dead serious drama, and the film is better off for it. As it stands, the film is both a parody of noir film as well as a straight noir film itself. Capable of delivering laughs on one hand and mystery and thrills on the other, The Scent is one of those films that show you how genre-savvy it is, and how much fun it's having while delivering the standard hits you expect from the genre. And like the best genre parodies, The Scent is lightweight, yet entertaining.