The Killer, or as it's better known, The Killer: A Girl who Deserves to Die (a subtitle that's good for disambiguation and absolutely fuck else) is a 2022 South Korean action movie about a ridiculously proficient professional assassin carving a bloody swathe across the criminal underworld - a JohnWick-alike. A Wicky-likey? A Wick-off.
Bang Ui-gang (Jang Hyuk) is the titular killer, now enjoying his happily ever after with his wife, Hyeon Soo (Chae-Young Lee). And as is usual in these things, tragedy soon strikes: Hyeon is going on a holiday with a friend, and strong-arms Bang (now that's a name for an assassin!) into taking care of her friend's teenaged daughter for three weeks.
OK, so maybe that's not in line with family or a puppy getting killed.
In any case the daughter, Seo-Young Lee (Kim Yun Ji) turns out to be a bit of a brat and annoys Bang to the point where he basically bribes her to get her out of his hair. But on a hunch, he decides to track her down instead... which ends up being a good idea, because a bunch of teen ne'er do wells are basically forcing her into a prostitution ring.
Bang walks into this induction, cool as a cucumber, kicks everyone's butts, and heads out with Seo. But the next day he finds out that all the kids he'd just knocked around are stabbed to death, and he gets a call from the madam/would-be-pimp that they have a knife with his fingerprints, and that they're going to frame him.
So Bang tracks them down again, getting more and more violent, and things escalate as they're wont to do in this sort of movie - things of course go deeper than it looked like at first, and poor Seo-Young had been 'chosen' by a rich and powerful douchebag who has half the Korean underworld and part of the Russian Mafia in his back pocket. Because you can't have a Wick-off without the Russian Mafia.
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| Hallway; Simulated one-take; A horde of thugs; Heavy color grading. Modern action movie bingo! |
South Korean cinema has a long and storied history in the action genre -a film like this is of a line that goes back to The Villainess, The Man from Nowhere (which gets a shoutout here!) and, I dunno, A Bittersweet Life- but it's pretty clear here that the filmmakers were mostly looking westward, and towards the 87North filmography in particular. Which is fine! None of this exist in a vacuum, and it's not like Stahelski and co. didn't lift from other places. Director Jae-Hoon Choi and his fight team keep things lively and memorable; Apparently Bang Ui-Gang is known for doing a lot of the fight choreography, so good on him.
The action is frequent, varied and a lot of fun - violent, gory (all digital blood, but a little less floaty than most) and filled with pretty cool and painful-looking stunts. I'm a bit less of a fan of the editing, which is too jumpy and tends to change position a bit too often, but things are still crystal clear.
That's a good thing, because while the script is serviceable, it's one of those jobs where the protagonist is perfect and five steps ahead of everyone else and playing 3D chess while everyone around him is playing tiddlywinks. There are no stakes because he's basically infallible; besides, some of the 3D chess moves are pretty wonky; I have no idea what the hell the use of stringing up a major threat with a weird pulley system achieved, for example, and there's a couple of instances like that seem almost random.
The script is also hit and miss with characters and their development, but it's not too bad. There's a chunk of maudlin backstory that's pretty cringeworthy, but the character relationships are solid, and there's a welcome amount of (intended) weirdness and funny character moments. Look out for a great scene with a gun dealer and youtube tutorials.
It's not as solid a movie as the previous collaboration between this director and the protagonist, 2020's excellent historical epic The Swordsman, but it's still a great follow-up- it might be derivative, but it's compelling and full of great action. You could ask for a lot more, but you don't really need it, do you?
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