“Killing is simple. Compared to raising a kid, that is.” That’s the tag line for Kill Boksoon, and it’s meant to be funny of course, but more of that kind of humor would have gone a long way in this splashy yet superficial two hour plus assassin romp coming to Netflix in March following its heavily touted Berlinale premiere. Inevitable comparisons with Killing Eve won’t do Byun Sung-hyun’s actioner any favors, though lead Jeon Do-yeon (Secret Sunshine) is a pleasure as always as the titular hit woman having difficulty balancing her high-pressure career with being a single mom – like so many working women. The action sequences are well-done if not exactly thrilling, but the whole shebang is awfully predictable, and while director-writer Byun (The Merciless) toys with interesting notions of ethics and “doing the right thing,” that’s all just perfunctory window dressing. Netflix will likely have a hit, but Kill Boksoon won’t linger in the synapses.
Things kick off well with the opening sequence, where a waitress-clad Gil Boksoon (Jeon) does battle at night on a deserted highway flyover with a snarky Korean yakuza (Kim Seung-o). She’s the top assassin for the most powerful killing agency, MK, but she’s been in the business a long time, having been recruited by Cha Min-kyu (Sul Kyung-gu) when she was a teen living with her abusive father, and there’s pressure for her to retire. Problem is, she’s the best, and she still enjoys her work.
This killing game is run by a highly organized conglomerate of “companies” with Chairman Cha at the head, each semi-independent but sworn to abide by Cha’s rules: no minors can be killed, all hits must be authorized, and no contracted assassin can turn down a “show,” as they’re called. Cha’s maintained a soft spot for Boksoon, unlike his younger sister Cha Min-hee (Esom), MK’s director and a capricious boss who’d like nothing more than to see Gil taken down. That looks likely to happen following the next contracted hit, the son of a prominent politician in hot water for bribing a school to accept his kid. The father wants his son offed but made to look like a suicide, so he can get all the sympathy, but Boksoon sabotages the show when she realizes what’s going down, setting off a firestorm within the crime syndicate.
In the past, Gil probably wouldn’t have hesitated to kill the teen, but her daughter Jae-young (Kim Si-A) is fifteen and challenging her mother with surprisingly principled views about “doing the right thing.” Not that she’s aware of her mother’s line of work of course, though she knows Gil is keeping her in the dark about a lot of things. As it turns out so is Jae-young, whose burgeoning acceptance of her queerness remains a dark secret until a violent outburst leads her to come out of the closet.
Byun handles the lesbian subplot rather well, but like so much in this film, each time the script heads towards some kind of psychological insight it gets pushed aside in favor of cartoonishness. Even worse, it toys with questions of truthfulness and principles beyond the criminal code of honor, leading us to believe Gil, under her daughter’s influence, may come to reject her murderous past, yet then tosses all that aside to revel in gleeful splatter. A mock killing scene in MK’s training lab between Gil and a young recruit, Kim Young-ji (Lee Yeon) is cleverer than the rest, set to a flamenco-inspired score that reinforces the dance-like nature of the bout, but otherwise the assassinations are slickly done though without anything memorable about them, and that includes Byun’s sporadic use of “what if” scenarios in which possible fight moves and their consequences are edited together or, in the final battle, superimposed in multiples over the real action.
This is the third feature pairing Jeon Do-yeon and Sul Kyung-gu, after I Wish I Had a Wife and Birthday, but given Chairman Cha’s even-keeled, steely temperament, the chemistry between the two largely derives from fans’ past investment in their couplings. Jeon handles the action sequences well but it’s her wry looks and hints of someone real beneath the killing machine that give Kill Boksoon interest. Byun’s amusing use, twice, of the Burt Bacharach/Herb Alpert standard “This Guy’s in Love With You” generates genuine chuckles.
Director, screenplay: Byun Sung-hyun
Cast: Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Kim Si-A, Esom, Koo Kyo-hwan, Lee Yeon, Park Kwang-jae, Jang In-sub, Choi Byung-mo, Kim Seung-o, Kim Ki-cheon.
Producer: Yi Jin-hee
Cinematography: Cho Hyung-rae
Production designer: Han Ah-rum
Costume designer: Kim Jung-won
Editing: Kim Sang-bum
Music: Kim Hong-jip, Lee Jin-hee
Sound: Kim Byung-in
Production companies: See at Film Co. (South Korea)
World sales: Netflix
Venue: Berlinale (Berlinale Special)
In: Korean
136 minutes
