Directed by: Hyeong-Joon Kim
Starring: Hee-soon Park, Si-hyeon Park, Sang-wook Joo
I love me a good detective story, and that’s just what The Scent is. It’s more than just having a mystery that’s compelling and invites you to try and solve it as the story progresses, it’s about having an interesting and completely flawed detective going about it. This movie manages to do both of those (well, the mystery is just barely on this side of compelling, but it still works).
A cop on probation starts his own private detective business where he mostly deals with cases of infidelity (and incidentally, he’s married to another cop and he’s on probation because he allegedly cheated on her) and gets into a case which is much more than he bargained for. After he wakes up in the morning after staking out a hotel where a husband was cheating on his wife, he finds both of the couple are dead in their respective hotel rooms, and he’s lying in bed naked next to one of them. He freaks out and hides the bodies, then has to deal with the police investigation, staying out of their reach while trying to find the real killer before he gets caught as the most obvious suspect.
I love how flawed the main character is, he’s good at his job, but he’s not really great or anything. All of his foibles come back to haunt him as a much better police detective gets closer and closer to suspecting him for the crimes while working right next to him. It lasts maybe a little too long and there are maybe one too many double crosses at the end, but it alternates well between being fun, being sexy, being actiony, and just being thrilling. I recommend it, if you’re into those kinds of movies.
Films in Boxes 
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