[HanCinema's Film Review] "Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman"

Last year, "Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman" was the winner of South Korea's big Chuseok weekend box office contest. Winning might be a bit of a strong word. With only around 1.9 million admissions, "Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman" had a poor historical performance even as it earned nearly double what "Road to Boston" did. And this is about the performance that might be expected from a movie that wasn't exactly bad, but not exactly enough to build a franchise on either.

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At least that was the impression I got. Gang Dong-won as the titular Dr. Cheon feels like a guy going through an origin story more than what he really is in the text- a huckster who learns to his alarm that he's dealing with actual malevolent spirits. Well, not exactly. The villain Beom-cheon (played by Huh Joon-ho) is pretty clearly a human wizard. Or at least he used to be. The only actual spirit we see is JISOO being channelled by Park Jung-min.

The idea is sort of funny, but doesn't really go anywhere beyond basic exposition. A lot of the script in "Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman" is like that, somewhat mildly amusing. The cold open, which has no spirits at all, is a riff on "Parasite" so subtle I'm loathe to call it satirical. There's a similar house, a reference to a semi-basement, and people with money to spare who likely won't even miss it. Dr. Cheon's insistently rationalizing himself as a high-priced mental health therapist rather than a con artist is oddly convincing in this context.

Then Esom shows up as Yoo-gyeong dressed up as if she were Bae Doona. I think this was supposed to somehow make her look younger, but it's not terribly convincing since I was still left wondering how she could be Park So-yi's older sister. Anyway, I can't really get into what her role in the story is without ruining what few plot twists there are. But as a character, Yoo-gyeong never really goes beyond just looking like a younger Bae Doona.

The action scenes are...competently done, I suppose, although they have the unfortunate effect of begging the question of why Dr. Cheon is so good at fighting with a sword, when he appeared to believe the sword was largely ceremonial until he arrived at Yoo-gyeong's house for her job. In general the whole fake exorcist angle feels like an artifact from a much earlier draft of the script. By the time we get into Dr. Cheon's tragic backstory, it feels like he should have been expecting something like this would happen sooner or later.

Overall the main problem with "Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman" is that the whole concept is just too generic. Sure, it's a decent enough time if you really want to see Gang Dong-won in a blockbuster style role where he gets into car chases and fistfights with people under the thrall of a menacing shaman who literally needs fingers in order to cast his spells. There just isn't much of a concept behind that sentence, is all.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman" is directed by Kim Seong-sik, and features Gang Dong-won, Huh Joon-ho, Esom, Lee Dong-hwi, Kim Jong-soo, Park So-yi. Release date in Korea: 2023/09/27.

 

Available on Blu-ray from Amazon

Blu-ray US (English Subtitled)