The first thing that usually jolts the first-time Fantasia International Film Festival visitors are the elusive meows that are heard in front of every screening after the head technician says, “Et maintenant…que le film commence!” (“And now… may the film begin!”). As he dims the lights of the Hall Auditorium, the audience begins to meow and sometimes make even weirder cat sounds. How did it begin? When I spoke to a few people who work the festival, they admitted having no idea, but are glad it’s solely indicative of Fantasia’s overall vibe and part of the fun of what makes this genre festival so fun to attend every year. Now, with Park Jin-pyo’s Brave Citizen, we actually have a character who dresses up as a cat to thwart bullies. Not only that, but the character meows before going into cat-like fighting moves.
If there’s one movie that will play impeccably well with a Fantasia audience this year (alongside Yoko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Ghost Cat Anzu), it’s definitely this one. Knowing the audience, it’s clear meowing was heard every time its protagonist, schoolteacher So Si-min (Shin Hye-sun), would do so, no matter what.
But did it have to be this boring? Perhaps a character that meows and dresses up like a cat may be the only criteria for the film to play at Fantasia because Brave Citizen doesn’t have much to offer beyond this. Sure, it makes sense that she would adopt this mantra since her fighting style (we learned since she was a child) mirrors the agility and dexterity of a feline. The fact that she only adopts this new identity after witnessing a student of hers getting brutally bullied by a ruthless, tyrannical student named Han Su-gang (Lee Jun-young) seems like a movie rife with crowd-pleasing excitement.
Brave Citizen has competent action scenes with little weight
Credit where credit is due, the action mostly works. The tactility is there, and a few impressive fight moves feel cathartic. However, its photography severely lacks finesse, and most shots look more janky than sweeping, which should be the opposite. Even the film’s final fight, a massive boxing match between the two characters, doesn’t have any sense of visual flourish, nor is the stuntwork that impressive. It may be fun to watch with a crowd, and it, again, certainly has that sense of pleasing people who are easily impressed, but it doesn’t feel enough to hook the audience in.
Jin-pyo uses some freeze-frames and split-screen sparingly, which gives some of the action scenes life, but not enough for it to matter because the character work at play is pitifully undercooked and plucked out of every cliché in the book. First, it is completely nonsensical that Su-gang isn’t in jail by now, especially considering that he’s attending an “anti-bullying” school. Yet, the “anti-bullying” administration is too scared even to do anything, and they let him run free, fully knowing that he may get someone killed.
That’s where So comes in, as she believes the targeted student will do something he will regret. Reverting to vigilante justice somewhat makes sense because the school’s administration is so incompetent that the only way to stop Han would be to teach him a lesson properly. But Jin-pyo stops there with his commentary on vigilantism, and never develops his characters past the clichés they are bathed in. It’s a shame because Hye-sun is legitimately fantastic here, perfectly balancing out the innocent charm of a new teacher with a darker side of herself that reawakens when one of her fellow students is threatened.
Shin Hye-sun gives a fun performance, even if So’s arc is undercooked
If anything, Brave Citizen remains relatively compelling because of Shin Hye-sun. Her ability to modulate different emotions as she goes through this journey of self-discovery is second to none, especially during the film’s opening moments. But she can’t, like any other protagonist, go past the tropes that define them.
The bully is your typical school bully who takes things way too far (clearly inspired by Johnny Lawrence in John G. Avildsen’s The Karate Kid). We have nothing else to work with, barring select flashbacks in which we see So’s past relationship with her father, which seems interesting to scratch the surface but is never developed beyond those sequences, even if her dad occasionally appears in the film in present-day scenes.
As a result, Brave Citizen can only go so far before it quickly languishes, with the only saving grace being the meows heard from the Fantasia audience in the Hall Auditorium and the almost Avengers: Endgame-level cheers at a Nongshim ad after everyone was given free noodles. That’s not great if the one thing you remember from the film isn’t what’s on-screen, but what’s outside of it. It’s definitely a memorable Fantasia experience, but it is hard to tell whether this will find an actual audience beyond the festival circuit.
For more about Brave Citizen at Fantasia Fest 2024, see Fantasia Festival’s website. Are you interested in seeing this movie? Or have you seen it? Let us know what you think on social media @mycosmiccircus!
Fantasia Fest 2024: 10 Most Anticipated Movies To Watch
