[Movie Review] Terrible teens, mass-murdering moms — it’s Kill Boksoon!

by alathe

Netflix’s Kill Boksoon is about one assassin’s journey to be a halfway normal mother to her incredibly unimpressed daughter. It’s a jam-packed film that’s equal parts weird, hilarious, and intricately crafted. Zany fight scenes abound — as does awkward family drama. If you’re looking for a story that proudly thumbs its nose at realism and says, what if hired killers had their own penthouse offices, then this one’s for you!

MOVIE REVIEW

We open on a sleeping man, sprawled on the side of the freeway, clad only in his tattoos. Peering down, smiling one of the sweetest and most unsettling smiles I’ve ever had the privilege to see, is a woman in a cleaner’s smock. The man is SHINICHIRO ODA (cameo by Hwang Jung-min), battle-hardened samurai and lethal member of the yakuza. The woman is his doom: GIL “KILL” BOK-SOON (Jeon Do-yeon), mother of one, company woman — and star assassin.

Make no mistake: she would have killed him while he slept. Except, lately, she had a conversation with her daughter about fairness. (Children are so smart, aren’t they?) So, he’s going to be given a chance, in the form of his centuries-old katana and a classic duel to the death. Bok-soon? She’ll be wielding a Walmart hatchet. The fight that follows is vividly choreographed and intense — and our heroine loses. As she’s backed against the wall, a series of probable events flashes through her mind, ending in her decapitation. Respectfully, she asks if she can switch weapons. Her opponent watches her retreat… only to reel back as several bullets perforate his chest. Bok-soon gave this fair fight thing a go! But bringing a sword to a gunfight is so passe — and let’s be real: the shops close soon. You can’t say fairer than that.

With the rug pulled out from under us, and the tone well and truly set for the rest of the movie, we’re off. Welcome to a world where killers have gone corporate! Bok-soon is the highest-ranking assassin at MK Enterprise, a dizzyingly successful firm run by CHA MIN-KYU (Sol Kyung-gu). Decades ago, Min-kyu united the assassination industry under three simple rules. Rule one: you must never murder minors. Rule two: you must only take jobs sanctioned by your company. Rule three: you must always attempt jobs sanctioned by your company. Rule-breakers will, of course, get a one-way ticket to the grave. In one fell swoop, he established market domination, consigning freelance killing to the dustbin of history.

Bok-soon is lucky: in the corporate barnyard that is the killing business, MK is top of the pecking order. Her drinking buddies and fellow assassins work for less prestigious firms, or rank lower on the industry ladder — including HAN HEE-SUNG (Gu Kyo-hwan), Bok-soon’s longtime colleague and occasional fling. Every so often, his resentment boils over. And Hee-sung’s not the only one envious. Min-kyu’s own sister, CHA MIN-HEE (Esom), whose kittenish grin conceals a heart of pure sadism, detests Min-kyu’s soft spot for Bok-soon. And so, when Bok-soon is handed an especially nasty job that forces her to question her convictions, it’s the perfect storm.

Don’t be fooled. This is, at heart, a family drama. Bok-soon’s biggest priority is her surly teenage daughter, GIL JAE-YOUNG (Kim Shi-ah). Although Bok-soon can kill you sixty different ways with a single improvised weapon, she turns anxious and awkward in the face of rebellious teenage snark. Jae-young is a sharp, witty, and delightfully obnoxious teen, whose forthrightness frequently leaves Bok-soon at a loss.

She’s also got her own secrets. Admittedly, nothing quite as big as her mom’s. But she’s in a relationship with her girl best friend, LEE SO-RA (Im Jae-in), who’s deeply closeted and jittery about getting caught. Teen love is a battlefield, and Jae-young’s got her work cut out standing up to the vile boys at her school — none of which, she reckons, is her mother’s business. However, things reach crisis point when she’s blackmailed over photos of her kissing So-ra. Hey, as far as I’m concerned, stabbing a guy in the clavicle is a pretty effective method of getting bullies off your back! Alas, the school authorities don’t see it that way — and Bok-soon is forced to grapple with the notion that she and her daughter might have more in common than she ever thought.

Kill Bok-soon is a fun romp, provided you’re equipped with a strong stomach and like your humor dark as midnight. Jeon Do-yeon is a treat to watch. She’s got such attitude, but there’s pitch-perfect vulnerability to her portrayal of what is, in effect, a serial killer in the throes of midlife crisis. (Or, at least, momhood crisis.) Bok-soon pulls off disaffected-yet-cool in a way that’s hilariously reminiscent of her own teenage daughter — right before nailing you with that wide assassin’s smirk till the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

She’s not the only standout performance. Sol Kyung-gu is effortlessly charismatic as assassin-turned-business-mogul Min-kyu. His feelings for Bok-soon are so painfully genuine that it’s easy to forget he’s a ruthless killer — at least, until he’s beating a guy to death atop a business table. Then, you remember pretty quickly. Meanwhile, his younger self being played by Lee Jae-wook at his most sinister made this movie feel like a gift for me personally. Assassins, lesbians, and one of my favorite Alchemy actors? Aww, you shouldn’t have.

Meanwhile, Esom has the ability to make you feel slimy just from a few lines of dialogue — and I mean that in the best possible way. As an unrepentant villain apologist, I was cackling every second her character was onscreen. (The, uh, less said about her very unsettling relationship with her brother, the better, though.)

As for the mother-daughter relationship underpinning it all? There are moments when it just misses the mark — and others where it hits the nail on the head. At times, it feels oddly underwritten, by dint of Jae-young being shunted aside from the action for most of the movie. But there’s one scene where Bok-soon comes home late, still bleeding beneath her hastily-cleaned suit after a five-to-one fight to the death. Jae-young is emotionally raw from having come out to her mother, only to be unceremoniously dumped by her girlfriend. Each wounded in their own way, the two sprawl backwards on the couch together, and tentatively talk it out. I loved that so much. The broken symmetry between mother and daughter, the physical barrier of the couch between them… gorgeous!

On that note, it made me so happy to see a lesbian supporting character — especially one as moody, perceptive and spiky as Jae-young. If I’m utterly honest, though, her actual plotline seemed a tad rote. Maybe I’m being picky, but I feel like I’ve seen it a few too many times. Closeted teen lesbian? Check. Girlfriend scared of what others will say? Check. Blackmail at school? Check. Mother who’s well-meaning, but spouts old, prejudiced chestnuts like ‘are you sure you’re not confused’? Check. It was well done, and sensitively written, but I’m yearning for more creative queer narratives here. That said, the resolution was anything but cliché: no spoilers, but do keep watching through the credits. Holy narrative catharsis, people!

Family drama played out in a way that was two steps removed via Bok-soon’s mentorship of assassin intern KIM YOUNG-JI (Lee Yeon). Bok-soon’s behavior as teacher contrasts sharply to her behavior as mother. In the latter role, she struggles to be cool and accommodating while doing nothing but exasperate her daughter. In the former, she’s all slit throats and tough love. One of the most delightful scenes in the movie was of Bok-soon sparring for the first time with Young-ji before an audience of recruits: Bok-soon, preparing to thrash this newcomer with nothing but a highlighter pen; Young-ji, breathlessly determined to best the woman she hero-worships. It’s such a fascinating mirror image of Bok-soon’s relationship with Jae-young!

And how awesome is it that the grittiest, dirtiest fight location we get — the interior of a gross public bathroom — is staged? There’s nothing remotely underworld-y about the way assassins operate in this movie. Scarred gangsters sit at conference tables and debate policy. Our heroes duel in airy, high-ceilinged offices. It’s gorgeously disorientating: all corporate suits and high-tech training facilities — killing turned capitalist. And it’s a direct, clever parallel to the hidden violence and underhandedness of the classroom politics Jae-young has to navigate. This movie’s aesthetic is wild, and I adore it.

On the topic of directorial decisions, it’d be remiss of me not to bring up the nifty little technique they had for showing Bok-soon’s thought processes. In the middle of a fight, we see the way she expects it to play out: shots of Bok-soon losing, Bok-soon dying. Then, time reverses, and she rethinks her strategy. It works on the battlefield; it’s less than useless with her daughter. I was on the fence about this visual trick until the final, climactic fight of the movie, where it was used to stunning effect. What a way to up the stakes, and to show the hundred ways in which Bok-soon was almost destined to fail — to have their cake and eat it! Because, at the end of the day, what is a successful assassin if not someone who parses every eventuality and selects the only winning option?

All in all, this movie is very, very worth it. The acting is delightful, the premise unbelievably fun, and the execution, excellent. What holds it together is sheer force of quirkiness, especially when it truly commits to the bit and lets our assassin protagonists be incredibly awkward. I feel as if it might have benefited from ten more minutes at the end — the final twist was a little abrupt. However, on reflection, I still enjoyed the ambiguity: the ending was every bit as fragmentary and uncertain as Bok-soon’s overall relationship with her daughter. (Plus, remember to wait for that credits scene!) A movie about hired killers and their terrible personal lives was already a winner in my book — but this one went above and beyond.

 
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