DERANGED (2012)

South Korea. Direction: Park Joung-woo. Production: Kim Sang-o / Ozone Film. Screenplay: Park Joung-woo. Photography: Sammy Ki. Music: Cho Young-wuk. Edition: Park Gok-ji. Cast: Kim Myeong-min, Moon Jeong-hee, Kim Dong-wan, Lee Honey, Eom Ji-seong, Yeom Hyun-seo. Running time: 109 min

LANGUAGE: English / SUBTITLES: Basque

The day it was brought out in its country, this film that measures its wits against the pharmaceutical companies with its own brand of pluck implemented by a hugely active and well-organised group of indignant activists, beat The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) at the box-office, by 40,000 spectators! That weekend, 190,000 Koreans watched Deranged and 149,000 Spider-Man. Such a success comes as no surprise. The film by Park Jeong-woo, who wrote the screenplay for another pure cult piece, Attack the Gas Station (1999), obeys with metaphoric irony all of the rules of films about viruses, plagues and different varieties of contamination brought on by those who hold power of any shape or size and bow to no-one but the Money God. But in addition to this, Deranged, younger and easier going sister of The Host (2006), is a thriller, a spin-off of “CSI” (2000-) and “Bones” (2005-) and even a film about a family that, if they pool their forces, perhaps, who knows, may finally manage to rid themselves of the murderous worms. The only doubt that corrodes the spectator’s guts is: doesn’t anyone in Korea know what a generic drug is? Nope, apparently not.