Gil Bok-soon (Jeon Do-yeon) is one of the best assassins in the MK Company, but with a teenage daughter, Gil Jae-yeong (Kim Si-a), back at home and her contract set to expire, she begins to focus her efforts more on being a mother than a killer. Not wanting to lose his company’s best asset, Cha Min-Kyu (Sol Kyung-gu) does his best to convince her to stay. Unbeknownst to him, his sister, Cha Min-Hee (Esom), lays a trap for Bok-soon with another skilled agent in the company, Han Hee-Sung (Koo Kyo-hwan) to force her hand in renewing her commitment to the Company. When the trap fails, the effects ripple across the entire contract-killer market leaving Bok-soon and the entire MK Company with a large target on their backs. 

The South-Korean action thriller, Kill Boksoon, is written and directed by Byun Sung-hyun and received a worldwide release through Netflix after it was acquired by the streamer following its debut at Berlinale. At 137 minutes, it can seem a daunting task with all of the distractions at home to contend with, but Sung-hyun wastes no time diving headfirst into the pulpy action. He opens the film in a dark alley by the train tracks as Bok-soon faces off against a tattooed assailant whom she has kidnapped. She throws him a samurai sword and for herself opts for a hatchet recently procured at the hardware store; tags still attached. In this cold open, Sung-hyun establishes three things about the film for his audience: we are going to have fun, rules are meant to be broken, and do not trust the first things you see.  

Leading the film, Do-yeon brings all the gravitas in the more dramatic scenes reminiscent of the emotional and moral dilemma films of which she had made a name for herself throughout much of her career, but she also works incredibly well as the action hero of the film, too. Her ability to serve both plot lines is the key for the film to work as well as it does because now the rest of the cast can fully commit to their respective dramatic or action sequences without needing to worry about bridging the tonality as the film is brought together by Do-yeon’s performance. She brings a ferocity to the screen, and while she is impenetrable on the battlefield, at home she has met her match in her daughter who is becoming more and more sheltered after relentless bullying at school. 

It is not uncommon for scripts in this vein of storytelling to try and humanize their ruthless killers, but oftentimes this practice is met with mixed success as the slowing down of the narrative can often deflate the momentum of the film. Kill Boksoon never slows down, even when it is exploring the strained home life between mother and daughter because Sung-hyun’s script smartly creates parallels between the two story lines. Jae-young is having a hard time at school when she lashes out at Cheol-woo (Choi Hyung-joo) with a pair of scissors stabbing the student in the neck, close to killing the boy. She refuses to answer why she attacked another student, but it is eventually revealed that the boy had threatened to blackmail her when he took pictures of Jae-young kissing her girlfriend, So-ra (Im Jae-in), after school. Scared, both by the attack and of their secret getting out, So-ra leaves Jae-young, leaving her a social pariah in school with no one left to turn to; similar to how Bok-soon becomes ostracized by the MK Company when a hit is placed on her by the Cha Min. Bok-soon is certainly not in the running for Mom of the Year in how she handled her daughter’s coming out, asking that maybe she is just confused and provoking the ire of the teen, but with both of their secrets now out in the open – however, it should be noted that Bok-soon merely allows her daughter to believe her own conclusion that her mother works in National Intelligence – they can begin to rebuild their relationship with a newfound understanding that neither person will be exactly what the other has envisioned for themselves. 

As for the hallmark of the film, its stylized action, Hyung Rae Cho’s cinematography dynamically captures all of the frenzied stunts in such a way that nothing is ever lost visually in the melee. The easiest Western comparison to the film would be Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill (2003, 2004) or Chad Stahelski’s John Wick franchise, and while that is to say nothing of the wide breadth of influence which the two directors drew from, it is a valid shorthand to say that the same elements of the genre which excited them also excited Sung-hyun. The director employs a dizzying bit of storytelling where we see Bok-soon visualizing the outcomes of her next possible moves, treating the fights like a chess game, but we are not aware that these are just possibilities until the camera sharply cuts back so that we may see Bok-soon lay her arrived at gambit. This motif is utilized to great effect in the final showdown of the film, but the most exciting sequence is at the central turning point when Bok-soon becomes the most wanted person in the industry. Han Hee-Sung enters the small restaurant where members from various companies come to mingle, touting his newly minted A-ranking, the same afternoon the hit has been placed on Bok-soon. The dining room erupts in a fury as every pot, pan, and utensil is used in a deadly and relentless flurry, eventually finding the last few remaining characters against a wall both inside and outside of the shop. The camera begins to orbit around them passing through the bricks – making some five, six, seven passes – as the fight rages on and the action never stops. With everyone fighting at the top of their game and our vision constantly being obscured by the wall yet never feeling cheated of seeing any of the landing blows, the anticipation to see who will survive is nothing short of incredible and the use of space is thrilling. 

Sung-hyun delivers a bombastic thriller that, while it received an immediate wide release through the streaming platform, deserved to be seen theatrically so that the camera work could really shine and highlight these impeccably dressed stars who are not afraid to get a little muddy and bloody in the process. His script is dense, but it never feels overwhelming so that audiences are able to quickly pique their interest and soon after, they are enraptured by the gruesome ballet on screen. For fans of Do-yeon, she brings a refined performance to the mercenary, but Kill Boksoon has much more to offer to fans of the genre as it delivers its kills and thrills with great accuracy. Sung-hyun creates many instances where the characters are in danger and has allegiance only to the story so that no one feels safe. Kill Boksoon then becomes a dangerous game, not just because of the swords, but also because of the shifting alliances formed in back rooms. He lets us in on all these conversations, so we are never lost in the goings-on, but like Bok-soon and the rest of the company, we never feel entirely safe, either.