Perhaps part of a trend or not, but we have seen a crop of commercial Korean films centered in the thriller genre but set within a unique niche. “Marine Boy” told an entertaining tale of an underwater drug runner, “The Scam” depicted the exploits of a gang of stock market manipulators, “Handphone” told a wacky tale of an entertainment executive losing his cellphone, and now we have “Insadong Scandal.” The movie is set in the not often told Korean folk art world and also features the popular art neighborhood of Insadong, Seoul as its backdrop. Also, like some of these prior films like “Marine Boy” and “Handphone,” “Insadong Scandal” aims for over the top thrills & performances that are like wise over the top. Unfortunately, unlike “Marine Boy” or “Handphone,” which offers genuine intrigue within its pedal to the metal scripts, “Insadong Scandal” comes across as a poorly made inside joke that misses its mark.

The story for “Insadong Scandal” is way more convulated than necessary and its likely to leave a lot of viewers bewildered. After awhile I gave up trying to follow the minutiae details of movie and just soaked in the performances, while having a general idea of where the story was going. If you’re genuinely curious about the story, well there’s the evil art curator Tae-jin Bae (played by Jeong-hwa Eom) who hires the ultra talented, but disgraced, art restorator Kang-jun Lee (played by Rae-won Kim). Tae-jin employs Kang-jun to restore an extremely valuable historical painting, which wiill Kang-jun nearly a year to complete. During this time, Kang-jun has his own ulterior motives to work on the project, the primary reason being to screw over Tae-jin Bae.

I’ll admit I haven’t been much of a fan Jeong-hwa Eom films and “Insadong Scandal” doesn’t change my opinions of her. You can check out my negative reviews for “Love Now,” “For Horowitz,” & “Seducing Mr. Perfect” as references. This isn’t to say I think Jeong-hwa Eom is a bad actress per se. She was actually very appealing in “Singles” and “My Lovely Week.” Nevertheless, more often than not, the film projects Jeong-hwa Eom picks seem to be statement roles that misses its mark (another example is the cheesy “Princess Aurora” which copped way to much “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance”). With “Insadong Scandal,” plays a pure villainess for the first time in her career. The end result is Jeong-hwa Eom taking on her character with an over the top gusto that sinks the film in kitsch land. Rae-won Kim doesn’t help the film with his boyish charms which works to negate the believability of his character being some type of expert in the art field.

You know things are bad when the only positive thing you can say about the movie is that the supporting actresses (Song-hyeon Choi – a newscaster making her acting debut) was seriously hot in the movie. That’s it. Even the use of the Insadong neighborhood as movie’s backdrop failed to elicit any genuine interest in the movie or the area. Nothing was shown to make you think twice about the neighborhood and its brief scene in the the Ssamziegil shopping center felt like an out of place home video. Even though I came away completely unimpressed with the movie, if you’re a fan of Korean thrillers or follow the careers of the main performers, you may enjoy “Insadong Scandal” more than I did. Especially if you don’t mind absurd an absurd story with a completely hammy villain.