It was only a few days ago that the retired assassin Uigan (Jang Hyuk) had a happy life with his wife (Bang Eun Jung). After the girl was kidnapped in Choi Je-hoon’s muscular action movie The Killer, Uigan is pointing down a mob barrage to save her in a narrow corridor. If his ax slips through his ears, he won’t flinch. Instead, he tore two potential murderers with non-blinking precision, and a group of shocked tough men are afraid to watch over the elevator.
Hee-seop Choi goes back to this moment in the first half of the movie. Uigan’s wife wants to travel with her friend who has her teenage daughter Yunji (Lee So Yeon). Uninteresting, Ui-gang charged the girl with a babysitter while the two were on vacation. Shortly after they left, the 17-year-old was kidnapped by a Russian trafficking circle. Anyone pulling a string especially wants Yunji and Uigan to need to kill him in order to save the girl.
The well-choreographed action scene of “The Killer” is inspired by “John Wick” and “The Man From Nowhere”, but the film lacks heart.
The undercooked script by screenwriter Nam Ji-eun, based on Ban Jin-ho’s novel “The Girl Who Deserves to Die,” undertakes the dynamics of the interpersonal relationship between Uigan and his wife. Nimble Chan puts together a powerful sequence of actions (bloody freakouts often captured in slow motion), but no one else emotionally bases the scene. As a result, the “killer” cannot land a real knockout blow.
killer
Unrated. Korean with subtitles. Execution time: 1 hour 35 minutes. At the theater.
