Mark Reviews Movies: THE KILLER (2022)

The Killer, Shaw Entertainment Group

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 12, 2022

Director Choi Jae-hun's The Killer is a stylish and bloody action film about a professional assassin, brought out of retirement for a personal matter and on account of some gangsters who dare to mess with his simple life. The setup will sound familiar, even beyond the most recent and obvious similarity to an American series of action films about a stylish killer, brought out of retirement on account of gangsters who dared to kill his dog. If we dismissed stories simply based on their similarities to other ones, there'd be few stories worth telling anymore, so for the moment, let's forget about the American assassin, all dressed in black, who has an arsenal of weapons and fights as if his pistols are extensions of fists.

Instead, let's focus on Bang Ui-gang (Jang Hyuk), a Korean assassin, all dressed in black, who has an arsenal of weapons and only occasionally fights as if a pistol is an extension of his fist. The character, who originated in Bang Ji-ho's web-based novel The Kid Deserves to Die, is, obviously, also a familiar type, but Jang's performance is fascinating in how the actor makes Ui-gang stand apart from some of our expectations of such a character. He's reluctant to get back into the game of killing, because he now has a wife, whom he loves and wants to make happy, and at least one old emotional scar from his former profession.

That's nothing new, perhaps. There is, though, an amusing undercurrent to irritation to Jang's performance, as if business of trying to protect and rescue a teenage girl, whom he's babysitting and who ends up abducted by some mobsters, is little more than a minor inconvenience to his plans.

Ui-gang eventually comes to care about the girl and her well-being—for more reasons than keeping his wife, who promises problems if anything bad should happen to the teen, happy. Before that, though, the professional killer, who just wants to relax in the luxurious mansion his career paid for, is just kind of annoyed that he doesn't get to have a good night's sleep, that he has to drive around chaperoning and searching for his ward, and that none of the goons and thugs who keep getting in his way get the hint that he is not a man with whom to mess.

When we first meet him, Ui-gang is quiet but content, living with his wife (played by Lee Chae-young) in playfully sarcastic bliss. Actually, we first meet Ui-gang in a flash-forward to one of the many action sequences in Nam Ji-woong's screenplay—battling a pair of guys wielding axes, dodging the swung and thrown blades, disarming them with ease, dispatching them with their weapons. The opening gets right to some action, which otherwise takes some time once the story begins properly, but it does undermine the surprise of the seemingly normal Ui-gang being this skilled and ruthless a killer.

The plot begins simply, too, with the wife announcing that she's going on a two-week vacation with her friend (played by Yoo Seo-jin), who wants to leave her 17-year-old daughter Yoon-ji (Lee Seo-young) behind. The wife volunteers Ui-gang to watch the girl, but as annoyed as he is at the prospect of some stranger invading his private space and taking up his time, he can't say no to his wife. A brief flashback to one of his earlier assignments, in which a woman hired Ui-gang to put her out of her misery, suggests a lot about his change of heart—or his development of one—without really illuminating much about the man.

To be fair, he doesn't need much more characterization than that. Jang does most of the work of giving Ui-gang a personality that extends beyond his talents with his fists, legs, and an assortment of other weapons. There's that intriguingly bored irritation, of course, but the guy also has a devious twinkle in his eye as he ventures deeper and deeper into an international conspiracy of human trafficking, while slaughtering henchmen and interrogating the higher-ups with chuckles that are disarming as his hands—or even just one, as he proves while holding a cup of coffee during a confrontation—can be. A couple of his former associates, who help get weapons or clean up after Ui-gang's bloody business is complete, suggest he has deep psychological issues, which is both an understatement and a bit irrelevant to his strange charms.

The rest of the plot, as Yoon-ji is repeatedly taken and passed up the ladder of a twisted kind of Korean-Russian "cultural exchange," is basically an excuse for Ui-gang to get into multiple brawls and shootouts at different locations—a roller rink, a high-rise hotel, a port, a party at a swanky estate. Along the way, he has to deal with a blond-haired assassin (played by Bruce Kahn), chasing him with a dart gun, and make a deal with a cop (played by Lee Seung-joon), who suspects Ui-gang of killings he didn't commit—or has some other motive for pursuing our protagonist.

The action matters more than any of the routine plotting or characters (although Ui-gang's growing paternal attachment to Yoon-ji adds a slight touch of sweetness—well, as much as is possible). Choi stages them with distinct types of dynamism (a faux one-take down a hallway and the camera rotating around those axe-wielders, as examples), even if some instances of rapid-fire editing undercut the clear physical prowess of the performers. Even so, The Killer works as a slight variation on familiar material, thanks in large part to Jang's performance, and a dependable vehicle for vibrant action.

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