Yadang: The Snitch

Yadang: The Snitch

25/4/2025 2h 3m 6.9/10

Overview

Navigating both the criminal underworld and law enforcement agencies, professional snitches called "yadang" provide covert information about the drug world to prosecutors and police. When a drug bust at a party attended by high-profile second-generation VIPs entangles those involved into a dangerous conspiracy, a seasoned yadang must do everything in his power not just to make it out on top, but alive.

Director

Hwang Byeong-gug

Top Billed Cast

Kang Ha-neul

Kang Ha-neul

Kang-soo

Yoo Hai-jin

Yoo Hai-jin

Koo Gwan-hee

Park Hae-joon

Park Hae-joon

Oh Sang-jae

Ryu Kyung-soo

Ryu Kyung-soo

Cho Hoon

Chae Won-been

Chae Won-been

Uhm Su-jin

You Seong-joo

You Seong-joo

Yeom Tae-soo

Reviews

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

5/18/2025

7/10

I must admit I didn’t quite understand just what was going on at the start of this. “Lee Kang-su” (Kang Ha-neul) is a brash and confident young man who manages to get information on drug dealers which he then passes on to the police and/or the public prosecutors in return for a cut and them getting a reduced sentence if they turn state’s evidence. Thing is, the further up the food chain they get the more political “interference” the investigators encounter and pretty swiftly that causes problems for this young “Yadang” as he ends up a victim of his erstwhile protector, ambitious prosecutor “Ku Gwen-hee” (Yoo Hae-jin) and pumped full of blue methadone to the point where he doesn’t know day from night. Once released, though, he unites with similarly manipulated former police captain “Oh Sang-jae” (Park Hae-joon) and an young actor (Chae Won-bin) whose career was wrecked after she, too, was exposed to this highly addictive substance and ultimately used as a glorified hooker by someone extremely close to the presidency - and the election is looming. Once the story gets up and running, this proves to be quite an entertaining, if not always entirely plausible, analysis of lucrative drug running and politicking in a South Korea that seems determined to stamp out criminality however perilous that path might be. It’s a gritty, sometimes seedy film that sees both men and Chae Win-bin deliver strongly and in the case of Kang Hae-neul enthusiastically too. There is plenty of action across the two hours and the denouement has something of “The Sting” (1973) to it as vengeance knows few bounds. Worth a watch.

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