The advance in technology, particularly the ease in transfer of money over smartphones, means that crooks are also getting high-tech with their scams and thieving ways. One such crime that has seen a large spike in cases in the recent years is voice phishing, the use of telephone calls to scam people out of their hard-earned money, with hundreds of millions of dollars being swindled the world over each year. The disadvantage of modern technology and financial scams are both great fodder for filmmakers, so it was only a matter of time before someone produced a story set in this criminal enterprise. That someone ended up being director duo Kim Gok and Kim Sun, best known for low-budget horror fare, who were provided with a decent budget for thriller “On The Line”.
“On the Line” is screening at the 11th SDAFF Spring Showcase
Seo-joon now works as a builder and life is looking up for the ex-cop. He is ready to put a deposit on a new house and has just been offered a tidy promotion by his boss. However, the construction site is targeted by a voice phishing gang and just as an accident almost occurs at the site, the gang manages to scam millions of Korean Won from the families of the builders, including from Seo-joon's wife. His police instincts kick straight in and Seo-joon decides to find the gang responsible, including those at the very top, and make them pay, a task which will take him all the way from the seedy underbelly of Seoul to Shenyang, China and put his life on the line.
“On the Line” begins strong, with Bae Yong-ik's script showing a good understanding of how the scam works and the infrastructure that goes behind executing it. The hotline first half keeps a fast pace as the phishing happens and Seo-joon immediately gets on their case. The execution of the actual scam at the construction site is portrayed to thrilling effect, as is its aftermath in which Seo-joon tries to gather information on those that stole from them. Byun Yo-han, who plays the lead, is certainly believable and works well in the few action sequences, which keep the realism intact, at least in the first half.
It is when he travels to Shenyang that the narrative starts to fall apart at the seams. Where it should start getting stronger, since there is a lot of potential with Seo-joon literally going into the lion's den, poor characterization and flights of fancy tend to make the feature lose its grip. It doesn't help that almost none of the characters are fully developed, this being even more obvious in this latter half when the people around the character in the so-called Factory are not even named. The introduction of the main antagonist Pro Kwak, the designer of the phishing scenarios and lead executer, is supposed to instill dread and excitement and admittedly, Kim Mu-yeol does just enough to make him feel like a menace, but the script never really gives much scope to the character to truly fly. While the first half kept the actual scam feeling realistic, the authenticity of the enterprise at the Factory also comes into question.
“On the Line” has all the tropes of a good Korean thriller technically, looking and sounding very much as one would expect from features of the genre coming from this region. The uniforms in the Factory, like a voice phishing version of the “Squid Game” workers, are a nice touch too. However, the feature as a whole, beginning strong with a livewire first half, is sadly let down by a lackluster and fanciful second half, which is a shame because this had potential to be a definitive feature on the subject which never comes to pass.
