The Boys Who Cried Wolf is a 2015 film that was directed and written by Kim Jin Hwang as his first feature film. The cast of actors chosen to play the lead roles are also pretty much unknown except for Ryoo Joon-Yeol(One Way Trip). That's some of the magic of Korean indie films, you learn of new talent that might end up becoming popular in the future.
A struggling up and coming stage actor decides to play different roles for people that need companionship. He is then asked to play a witness for a murder case involving young boys. After he gives his false testimony, he learns that there's more to the case than he was originally informed about.
This film isn't too flashy in its plot development. Events solely deal with the interactions that the main character has with each person he works for. Many of the clients lead sad lives. I mean you must lead a sad life anytime you have to pay someone to be your companion. The plot also tells of the war that the main character has with himself. He went into this kind of work because he didn't want to give up acting. Then he realizes the worth of humanity through his experiences. What I liked the most about The Boys Who Cry Wolf was its need to stay as bare as possible. There's some shocker moments but these moments don't try to make out the film be more than what it already is. Its a "take it as you see it" film. Not a ploy in sight as you watch either. Just a film based on the acting of the actors playing their roles.
Park Jong Hwan plays an stage actor that was deemed not good enough to act out the roles that he chose. Instead he goes and creates his own performances with the help of an agency. This agency sends people out to play different characters for people that need it. The actor meets different people as he does this line of work. Each person is like a different layer of problems that makes him see the world in a different light. Park does great with acting out each new character that he must play. He also brought a bit of his original base character into the acting of each fake character. Since acting is living truthfully in an imaginary circumstance. The last client being the one that was the last straw. He breaks character to find out the truth of a murder which all the people involved do a bad job of hiding who did the killing. I think all their performances were meant to teach a lesson about life more so than trying to make The Boys Who Cried Wolf into a mystery thriller. One thing that the actors involved did do well in terms of making a mystery element was keeping the answer to WHY the killing was done a secret until the very end of the film. I'm not sure if it was on purpose but I felt a underline homosexual theme in the motive for the killing too. All of this is my speculation to a degree. The director might have meant for this to be implied without actually addressing it directly. The actor's performances did a great job at hinting at the possibility though.
The film makes sure to show the world of the working class in a Korean populated city instead of nicer upscale places in South Korea. Camera shots contribute to this by film locations that have low income apartments along narrow streets, street side restaurants that stay open late into the night, and the city line during certain points in the day. I enjoy looking at a city during dawn and at dusk the most. Kim Jin Hwang captures these moments of the day perfectly in the film. Especially when Park's character is walking around the city.
The Boys Who Cried Wolf is a great Korean indie film that truly represents the genre. I don't think this kind of film is for everyone but please try to watch it if you have the patience. This can be a good film or a boring film depending on your attention span.
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