Veteran

A blockbuster hit in South Korea, Veteran is an unsubtle populist cop swashbuckler that flatly equates the nation's super-rich business class with vile, sadistic gangsters. Poor-but-honest Seoul Police Detective Seo (Hwang Jung-min) suspects that a humble truck contractor was savagely beaten over a pittance in back pay owed by a mighty multinational. Seo and a small team of department loyalists pursue the unspeakably bloodthirsty young CEO who ordered the crime, coming up against the corporation's yes-men army of lawyers, thugs, compromised authorities, and bought-off news media. See-sawing between Keystone Kops-like martial-arts action comedy and real nastiness (the main villain is so foul he clubs his own vicious dog to death in a fit of rage), writer-director Ryoo Seung-wan also uses a curious subplot to portray the local film and TV industry as led by corrupt, wealthy degenerates—a case of biting the executive hand that fed him (the film became the sixth top-grossing South Korean film ever). Recommended. (C. Cassady)