The Ministry of State Security, China has an immense and embarrassing problem; supposed to be scrapped in North Korea, their shipment of 500 Tokarev pistols has been hijacked and is on its way to South Korea instead. Subsequently sending their team to investigate would be too obvious and risky; as a result, they recruit Yoo Da-hee (Lee Sun-bin), a young, female greenhorn agent based in South Korea to handle the dirty job, just for the reason that she's expendable.
Nevertheless, team leader agent Chao (Choi Byung-mo) arrives to brief her about seeing their agent at an insignificant office run by a local private investigator, Woo Su-han (Kim Young-kwang). As it turns out, their contact gets involved in a car accident, thus fails to show up and she ends up rendezvousing Woo instead and mistakes him to be her new working partner. As the pair investigates further, they get into deeper trouble as more bodies start to pile up, while the police are starting to take an interest in them. However, armed with their own special skills, this pair of courageous but mismatched individuals will stop at nothing to take down the arms smuggling gang.
As a bonus, the two young leads are likable and moreover, they share wonderful chemistry on the screen. Interestingly, the movie starts off with a roadblock that ends in a serious shootout, followed by a brutal execution. After the introduction of the main leads, the tone abruptly switches to light comedy with hardly any action at all, but by the last reel, more action is unexpectedly thrown in which is rather out of character and unpredictable. Private detective Woo is a character who behaves like a fumbling idiot who loves money; he's always behind in rent and will take any job, like looking for a cat as long as it pays. In a way his goofiness and bungling can be irritating for some viewers. However, the script takes a turn by the end of the movie which somehow justifies his odd behavior and Kim's portray of him is more than justified.
As the rough-and-ready but brainy secret agent, Lee is a stand out and equally refreshing in her leading role. Her comic timing and expressions are all spot on, she's indeed a strong and unique presence. On top of that, she's convincing and shows she has a flare in her action scenes even though they're less physical in nature. All the supporting actors put on a fine job, with Oh Dae-hwan being slimy enough as the boss who runs the arms trafficking gang while Choi's brief role as the jumpy Chinese team leader is quite funny. However, these TV stars will probably appeal more to the local viewers who're familiar with them.
First time director Kim does not focus solely on any dangerous stunt, in fact he accentuates the comedy element throughout, right down to character building. There's even a Jackie Chan style of fighting in a kitchen midway through, where he makes use of the environment objects which is creative and fun to watch. However, he does give viewers one hell of an intense knife fight during the movie's climax in which he turns the action and violence up a few notches. The overall over-the-top humor is a bit on the childish side but it's a common feature in most exaggerated Asian comedies. This goes for the music too but it's all part of the mood and it fits in.
The pairing of Kim and Lee as the leads is certainly a plus even though the odd couple in a partnership theme offers nothing new. Aside from the relatively goofy comedy which is very much a required taste, the unexpected and amazing action sequences will probably surprise and impress viewers and hopefully make this a balanced experience.
