„Kill Boksoon” opens with a tongue-in-cheek scene – a yakuza goon wakes up on a street wearing only underwear. He is about to be executed by the protagonist, Gil Boksoon (Jeon Do-yeon) a female gun for hire from South Korea. He is given a last chance to fight for his life, and duel with her. He gets a katana, she wields a hatchet. The odds are against her, the disproportionate strength works to the advantage of the Japanese. In a move being a clear riff on the famous scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, she whips out a gun and quickly dispatches her foe. After establishing the ironic, over-the-top tone, the director does little to maintain it after. What follows is a fight- and slow-mo-ridden slog.
Kill Boksoon screened at Berlinale
As far as referencing other movies goes, the director Byun Sung-hyun does not stop at Indiana Jones, and doubles down by basically ripping off the premise of the “John Wick” franchise. As the viewer quickly learns, the protagonist is not a freelancer. Instead, she is part of a large corporation. In the world of “Kill Boksoon”, exactly like in the Keanu Reeves' series, assassins are unionized, and have to follow a certain code of conduct. Gil Boksoon is a successful professional, and is one of the only two in the business who is presented with the highest tier contracts. The second one being her boss, Cha Min-gyoo (Sol Kyung-gu) with whom Boksoon seemingly has a complicated past.
The protagonist works in a male-dominated industry, and her success is observed with attention, with many below her waiting for the protagonists' downfall. Of course, it is only a matter of time before the pressure on Gil begins to mount. At some point, the protagonist is manipulated into a gig she does not carry out due to moral reservations.
The entire story could potentially be read as a metaphor on the modern conservatism, glass ceiling and inequalities in labor market – if someone would really insist on interpreting it that way. However, the themes initially laid out become obscured by the convoluted plot. All the attempts at being a more reflective story, about a troubled woman who is trying to make sense of her private and professional spheres of life conflating into one, ultimately fall through. It is so, because the director sprinkles these issues with incest, violence, patricide, poor plot twists, and, worst of all, a dive bar in Vladivostok. All of those subjects create an overwhelming noise which distracts from the progressive core of the story.
Despite Jeon Do-yeon giving a strong performance, it is her demonic antagonist, Cha Min-hee, played by Esom, who steals most of the scenes. The rivalry between the two women remains the most emotionally clear aspect of this otherwise frenetic plot. With the flashy cinematography by Cho Hyung-rae, “Kill Boksoon” proves to be a solid, but ultimately generic action flick. The feminist themes it tries to tackle are bogged down by the more ridiculous subplots.
