Kill Bok-soon on Netflix: Korean and feminine John Wick, totally enjoyable

What is it about?

On the plus side, he’s a famous contract killer. On the personal side, an overworked single mom. While killing is not a problem for him, raising a teenage daughter is a different story.

Kill Bok-soon, written and directed by Sung-Hyun Byun with Do-Yeon Jeon, Fahim Fazli, Jung-Min Hwang…

Bloody and nice

For Bok-Sun (Do-Yeon Jeon), a devoted and secretive single mother of a 15-year-old girl, finding a balance between work and personal life becomes increasingly difficult. Especially since Bok-sun has an easier time talking to his impressive collection of houseplants than his daughter, Jae-young (Si-ah Kim).

In addition, Bok-son is one of South Korea’s most notorious assassins: a typical day at the office might consist of taking down a Japanese gangster armed with a samurai sword. He might as well not come home and spend the night at all.”His show will be a success“Like the movie says. Hear ‘fulfilling his contract.’

Kill Bok-son is a unique movie in the Hitman movie category. Because Bok-sun clearly stands out. She doesn’t fit the shadow woman archetype, the omnipresent woman we meet without ever paying attention. He is a true star in his profession and the best of his agency who reigns supreme in this specific field. He is adored by all his colleagues. And when he lands somewhere, people notice.

Dressed in couture, fashion avant-garde, living in an ultra-luxurious apartment and driving a large Mercedes SUV, it does not go unnoticed.

When we meet Bok-son, he is preparing to face his latest target, a Yakuza naked but armed with his precious sword. Bok-son is content with an ordinary ax bought at a department store and a hotel maid’s uniform, which is impractical for close combat. And even in this outfit, she stands out.

But when he notices the lack of practicality of her outfit, he becomes pragmatic again and ends the mission with a gunshot. It’s an effective way to paint a portrait of this woman in a few minutes, a true professional who doesn’t practice her profession out of constraint, but truly with passion. This does not prevent her from being an attentive mother, even if life with a teenager turns out to be difficult.

When it comes time to renew his contract with his agency, he decides to give up his relationship with his daughter. But there’s a change after the show, which he doesn’t have.”Trying to achieve success at any cost“Typically requires. So his mentor and employer turn against him and the prey becomes the prey. This familiar story resonates logically with others, including John Wick, but the film quickly rids itself of it.

A single woman

Do-Yeon Jeon is more than convincing in the lead role. He finds a happy medium between absolute coldness and complete complicity. He is cold when dealing with colleagues and lovers, but when he is with his daughter or an intern, he experiences deep feelings.

It is in the moments when he switches from one to the other that he shines as an actor. There are also all these sequences that are almost premonition-like as he questions the person in front of him in anticipation of the various possible scenarios that could arise from this or that initiative. He’s a bit like the Zinedine Zidane of contract killers, his ability to read and anticipate makes him a remarkable creature.

This leads to a completely hypnotic sequence at the end of the film where he considers every possible configuration for a fight that promises to be terrifying. Dozens of scenarios unfold on the screen like an instant multiverse, giving this sequence a poetry of brutal beauty.

Kill Bok-soon should find its place on Netflix, appealing to a global audience of Squid Game fans. This Netflix film also enjoys a solid legacy: Do-Yeon Jeon won Best Actress at Cannes for Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sun in 2007. Director Sung-hyun Byun, who wrote the screenplay for Kill Bok-soon, said:The starting point of the film was not a specific story, but the actor Do-Yeon Jeon.“

Jeon is her long-time favorite actor. He thought for a long time about developing a new type of role for him, which would leave a lasting impression on the audience. Jeon has never been into the action genre. Thus was born Kill Bok-soon.

After deciding on an action film, he talked to Do-Yeon Jeon to develop the story and discovered that the biggest challenge for the actor was none other than raising his children. So she built the character of Bok-soon Gil around this idea, trading an acting career for a career as an assassin to emphasize the irony and contrast between murders and motherhood. Success.