Runway Cop
Runway Cop
| 30 May 2012 (USA)
Runway Cop Trailers

All he has is smell and a D-line body but is devoted in catching the bad guys. Detective Cha (Kang Ji-hwan) takes the cover of a model on a runway to solve a case.

Reviews
Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!
Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
fluffset I looking forward to see this movie just because I love to see Ji Hwan and Yu Ri acting together again after I watch Hong Gil Dong, TV series from Korea a long time ago. They have a good chemistry but its such a waste. They use a pair of big star but fail to make it success. Well, its a fresh story I guess, about a filthy cop who must do undercover as a model to investigate about drugs trafficking around model. He suddenly bumped with his old classmate, now as his fashion designer Miss Go. Its sure have big potential but with a lot of nonsensical comedy and unnecessary action, we feel uneasy and fail to laugh. They surely can use the love story between Ji Hwan and Yu Ri to attract all audiences but they just make it very simple and unattractive. By the way I try to love this movie but I cant. Just can give it 5 because its so average and common korean comedy. What's fun from this movie is the car chasing scene which is different from other conventional car chasing that we always saw in a movie. If you want to know, just watch it!
DICK STEEL Our desire to improve ourselves, especially in the physical sense, is fodder for Asian comedy films these days. It's no denying we'd generally like to look better and weigh lesser, and these are ready made premises that allows a comedy to be built upon, clearly taking a swipe at these flimsy wants. Japan had a restaurateur don a Handsome Suit in order to gain model good looks, while Korea played on the weight and plastic surgery issues with 200 Pounds Beauty. Here, we deal with poor hygiene and the lack of etiquette, conditions found acceptable by the sloth-like Detective Cha Chul-soo (Kang Ji-hwan).From the get go, Kang Ji-hwan's titular character is primed for physical comedy, with excuses painted to explain why any man would degenerate into a helpless situation like his, being the ridicule of fellow policemen. His clothes stink as much as his mouth, and his ultimate weapon in interrogations torture is his socks. Be warned though, even though you're seated in front of the screen, these sequences are shot in such vivid terms, you'll probably be feeling just as nauseous as the unfortunate characters caught in Detective Cha's gunsights.An undercover mission to pose as a male model will change all that, and job requirements meant transforming himself with great pain into a sculpted Greek god, unbelievable of course given the timeline, but this is movie fantasy after all. Given intel that the drug cartel had infiltrated the fashion industry, the cops enlist the help of rookie designer Ko Young-jae (singer Sung Yu-ri) to turn their only 180cm tall hope into a believable model for infiltration and investigations, with the latter using her launch showcase as a front for this purpose. And to add some value on the romantic front, both Cha and Ko turn out to be one-time classmates.The movie is what you would call an inconsistent screwball comedy where everything goes, be it smaller, nonsensical moments being played out to fine effect, or larger scaled comedic sequences that felt overly long, losing its intended impact and effect on the audience. Director Shin Tae-ra seemed to have yet to find the knack to craft punchy scenes, and the middle section somewhat sagged due to unnecessary repetition of audition scenes, and the fish-out-of-water moments.If compared to films like 200 Pounds Beauty and Handsome Suit, Kang Ji-hwan's character began as quite the lout, and didn't possess as much pathos as the lead characters in the other films, which makes him lose out in terms of getting the audience to sympathize with his predicament. More so as the challenge at hand didn't stem from deep, personal reasons, but more from a professional one. Jo-hwan did well as the sloppy looking detective, but didn't have much of a personality shine through when spending more time in the film as the slimmed down male model, relying on supporting caricatures to help lift the film through its limp stages. Yu-ri was equally culpable as the lead actress that wasn't really the best of roles, being average and generic for the most parts.Runway Cop has an interesting premise and sets itself up for a rip-roaring fun time in the cinema, but ultimately got undone by sticking to a formula that allowed it to go all over the place narratively. It's understood that the nonsensical comedy style is a draw, but this requires skill to craft, that director Shin hasn't manage to possess yet.