Detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) lives and works in Busan during the week and returns to Ipo on weekends to be with his wife Jeong-ahn (Lee Jung-hyun). Hae-joon is incredibly focused on his cases to the extent that he struggles to sleep to the point of being an insomniac. His latest case involves the death of a man who has fallen from a mountain that he regularly climbs which leads him to the man’s wife Seo-rae (Tang-Wei). 

Seo-rae is Chinese and had a very difficult journey to South Korea. The death of her husband seems to have made little impact on her and she also bears scratch marks on her arms and her husband’s name branded upon her. Becoming the prime suspect Hae-joon spends many nights staking out her home and interviewing her about her alibi. However the more he finds out about her the more entranced he becomes. 

What follows is a combination of a detective whodunnit and a dramatic love story where the sleuthing involves not just the culprit of multiple murders but the exact nature of Seo-rae’s motives. 

Decision To Leave is phenomenal and the only issue I have is explaining just how brilliant it is without ruining what is ultimately a superbly constructed story. Both of the lead protagonists are fascinating characters. Hae-joon is laser focused on his honour of being a good policeman who does his job proficiently whilst Seo-rae is possibly equally noble or the most manipulative of femme fatales ever put to screen. The joy of watching the layers of her character’s onion skin get peeled away is what makes the film so nail biting and moreish. 

Writer/director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) also delivers a visually stylish film on top of the genius story and protagonists. He implements a wonderful mechanism where Hae-joon’s detective mind transitions between him thinking about events and them happening. It’s wondrous to watch and results in some of the best transitions between objects and events put on film. 

To top it all Decision To Leave delivers one of the best endings put to film and gives the title the impact of a sledgehammer. 

Wonderful.