4 Star

The Search for the Right Soul in Seoul.

Trinity Cine Asia brings us the winner of 20th New York Asian Film Festival, Daniel Craft Award for Excellence in Action Cinema. Spiritwalker, written and directed by relative newcomer Jae-geun Yoon (Heartbeat). But what he brings is top-notch action Gun-fu thriller. It will keep you on the edge of your seat, as the search for the right soul traverses Seoul.

It is dark, and all is quiet, except for the hissing of a broken radiator. An SUV has crashed, and a man (Yoon Kyesang, Minority Opinion, The Outlaws) lies by the open drivers’ door. He is wounded, and in a bad way and that is not all, a transient Haengryeo (Ji-hwan Park, Warriors of the Dawn, Beasts That Cling to the Straw) is looting his car. He does have a heart though, he has phoned for an ambulance that can be heard in the distance.

In the hospital, he is interviewed, he has no memory, no I.D. and his car which is registered to an Ian has been sent to the junkyard. The officer thinks that he should be properly interviewed due to his gunshot wound. While she is checking, he makes his getaway. His possessions are some money and a key card for the Classic hotel, his room is well appointed and all the clothes are well tailored. He looks in the mirror, and the face that looks back is not his own.

Then suddenly he is somewhere else, and he is someone else, he panics and runs off, eventually he gathers his thoughts and finds out he is Mr Lee of the New World Deliveries, he remembers the Classic and heads there, when he arrives he sees a very confused man that looks like the face he saw in the mirror minutes before. That man runs into the road where he is hit by  a car, and then bundled into the back of the car, and it speeds off.

He even goes to New World Deliveries, where employees recognize him, but he doesn’t interact with them as he heads off. All this is confusing. The only clue he has is Haengryeo, so he finds him at a camp. He has to explain that the face he is wearing now is not the face he was wearing this morning.

Both men aren’t me.

When Haengryeo gets his head around the concept, he tells the stranger that he should go back to the beginning. But not too far, or he’ll forget himself.

The car is the first thing he remembers, so he heads for the junkyard, where he finds the SUV, he searches the car, the only thing he finds is a photo of a woman outside a church. A clue, perhaps.

Yep, it is a clue, but she is not pleased to see the face that is presented to her on their first meeting. Now, our mystery man has a major mystery to solve, as there are a lot of ruthless people out there that want him dead.

Spiritwalker is more twisty than Memento, and the action is fast and furious as bullets fly, and the kicks are high. A great action film for a Saturday night. A brilliant role for the popular lead actor Yoon Kyesang.

Spiritwalker will be available to view on the 31st March