A 2022 South Korean film about a retired hit man, Jang Hyuk, charged w/taking care of the daughter, Lee Seo-young, of his wife's best friend since they're both going on holiday together. Letting her & a friend hit the town, Seo-Young, at one point jumps on a rando's motorcycle & drives away but after Hyuk gets a call asking how she's doing, he reluctantly follows Seo-Young (he's planted a tracker in her wallet) where she's being menaced by some toughs so Hyuk falls back into old habits saving her & bringing her back home w/the next night during another ride home, a detective stops him at a roadblock where he asked his whereabouts since a murder was committed. It turns out one of the toughs, Sung-yeon, committed the murder in hopes of framing Hyuk using his knife which she somehow got her hands on but since she has Seo-young's wallet, Hyuk tracks them, beats them up & gains the knife but returning home, he finds Seo-young is now missing, apparently kidnapped. Tracking Sung-yeon down & mortally wounding her, he finds out Seo-young was selected by a particular perv involved in a Russian/Korean human trafficking ring w/the cop who stopped him earlier, Lee Seung-joon, also part of the mix. What follows are corrupt judges, a reveal of who his wife's friend really is & a slew of slaughtered henchmen who had the bad luck of meeting Hyuk's wrath (never thought I'd type that sentence!). Using a much better South Korean film, The Man from Nowhere, as boilerplate, the particulars of this story feels so overworked & yet simple at the same time, it becomes an endurance test to make it through the film's brisk 90 minutes.
Review of The Killer
