previously published on Asian Movie Pulse
Choi
Jae-hoon is positioning himself as one of the new hopes of the action-based
Korean cinema. His track record consists of 3 features in as many years and as
many genres. He gained some international attention with the historical
spectacle The Swordsman (2020), and the horror-thriller The Hypnosis ensued the
following year. His third film is a straight-up action thriller The Killer
(2022) based on a somewhat popular web-novel The Kid Deserves to Die written by
Bang Jin-ho. After the premiere at last year’s Udine Far East Film Festival and
a tour of genre-friendly film festivals, such as Fantasia, it has landed on the
streaming/video market.
The story
revolves around Bang-ui (Jang Hyuk who already worked with the helmer on his
debut feature), a semi-retired mob assassin willing to start a new life with
his wife Hyeon-soo (Lee Chae-young) making money in the real estate sector.
However, she plans a holiday with her best friend and the integral part of the
plan is that Bang-ui has to “babysit” the friend’s daughter Yoon-yi (Lee
Seo-young), a teenage girl with a talent to get in trouble. One thing leads to
another, the girl gets in trouble and has to be saved (repeatedly) by the former
hitman who, in process, discovers a wider conspiracy – a teenage prostitution
ring that involves some people on the high places.
Once we
manage to suspend our disbelief regarding the whole arrangement in which a
mafia hitman (and, more generally, a middle-aged man) has to take care of a
troublesome teenage girl he sees for the first time out of favour to his wife’s
friend, we are in for an interesting, rollercoaster-type of ride. The script
serves us with a plot that might seem convoluted and frivolous, but its
function is to basically propel the action from one choreographed action
sequence to another.
Those
fights and shoot-outs are refreshing in their “creativity”, especially when it
comes to elaborately brutal ways to kill an expendable “NPC” baddie. The fact
that the only one capable of properly hurting our protagonist gets three fight
encounters with him is actually quite a clever move that adds a layer of
video-game “reality” to the film.
Another refreshing thing is the complete lack of care for the postulates
of political correctness shown by the creative team: the villainesses of the film
are as venomous as the villains (if not even more), but expressing themselves
in a more scheming and covert way.
Choi’s
directing is quite sure-handed in the way the standard and not-so-standard
elements are combined. Acting-wise, Jang Hyuk is a convincing and compelling
protagonist with a strong presence and a good sense of timing when to switch
the acting “modes”, while the uneasy alliance-type of chemistry he shares with
Lee Seo-young is believable enough for an action-packed movie that cares more
about the set-pieces than the human drama. On the technical level, the
choreography of the action sequence is complemented with the choreography of
the otherwise slick cinematography of Lee Yong-gab, while the editor Kim
Man-geun controls the pace with his precise cutting and the Jung Hyun-soo’s
somewhat omnipresent, yet genre-diversified score (varying from ambiental and
electronic pulsating to hard/symphonic rock and heavy metal tunes) manages to
touch the right emotional chord in each switch.
Finally,
the reception of The Killer varies a lot of the expectations the viewer brings
to watching it. An exquisite piece of cinema it is not in any case, but it is a
fun, intense, lean and occasionally mean action flick that works equally well
on the big and the small screen.
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