Yesterday my wife and I went to an event called Korea Indonesia Film Festival (KIFF) 2019 at CGV Grand Indonesia and we got two tickets courtesy of Virgin Radio. We were very fortunate to get the tickets since 1 of my wife's IG follower could not come to the event and she offered the tickets for us, knowing that we both love to see movies. Anyway, after some commercials, the movie finally started at around 7.15 PM, oddly without any introduction. OK we'll go ahead with the film now.
Brief Story Line
When a group of dangerous criminals managed to escape from prison, the chief of Special Crime Unit Oh Gu-Tak (Kim Sang-joong - My Husband's Woman, The Rebel TV series etc) was tasked to apprehend them. In order to do so, he created a team which consisted of the infamous ex-gangster boss Park Woong-cheol (Ma Dong-seok - The Gangster, the Cop and the Devil, Train to Busan etc), a young new prisoner Ko Yo-sung (Jang Ki-yong - Come and Hug Me, Kill It TV series etc) and last but not least, a female con artist Kwak No-soon (Kim Ah-joong - 200 Pounds of Beauty, Live Up to Your Name TV series etc).
With unconventional methods of using their criminal minds and expertise, and with each had their own agenda, it would be a major challenge for them to work together to achieve the target. Things became more complicated when they realized there was a bigger power in play.
So what would happen to this group? Find them all in this cool action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
When I saw this movie, especially during the early part, honestly I was having a bit of challenge to understand or see where the movie was going. It seemed we were supposed to know the background of some of the characters but actually we were a bit clueless. My wife and I suspected that this movie was probably a sequel and it turned out that we were almost right. This was a movie based on a quite successful 2014 TV series titled Bad Guys with few characters reprising their roles in here. But after a while, especially when the team was formed, we could understand the main focus of the movie, which was about a group of dangerous bad guys who formed a "special unit" to catch much worse and dangerous people.
The film itself was really serious in term of actions. The action sequence was particularly great during the prisoners' escape and the climax, but the ones I loved the most were definitely the fight scenes involving Ma Dong-seok. I have seen few of his films and I gotta say that this one was 1 of my favorite since his fight scenes were a lot and always very brutal, utilizing his strength and fight skills. Every time we saw him fight, we could always feel the bad guys would end up totally beaten. There were also few very violent scenes which could discomfort audience (I heard some muffled screams from few of the people around me during those scenes). They were shown briefly but quite clearly so I believe this is definitely a movie for 17+.
The main attraction of this movie was the team's dynamic and behavior plus of course the fight scenes. My favorite star was obviously Ma Dong-seok, but the others were pretty impressive as well. Jang Ki-yong also looked quite skillful in fighting, while the only female Kim Ah-joong provided few lighter moments and funny scenes too. However, do not expect this one to be a full comedy action like Extreme Job although it did have one or two similarities like a team of misfits who ended up having to fight a very large group of dangerous bad people. This one sometimes felt quite dark and serious (especially when we found out the motive of the main villains).
Btw, the film was quite long, I think it was about 2 hours (not sure the exact duration). Some movie websites mentioned it was 114 minutes long but CGV website was saying it was 130 minutes. Seeing this movie in the big Starium studio was a big plus because we got the seats located almost at the most left side but we did not feel neck strained from staring at the large screen. Only thing we did not like was the couple sitting one seat next to my wife who could not stop talking during the show, plus few people who liked to play their mobile phones with the brightest screen. Oh, the Dolby Surround 7.1 was also great, making the experience of watching the action scenes even better.
Overall this was a good enough action movies. It has a steady tone which kept us interested till the very end (there was no mid or end credit scenes). It has few funny moments where we could laugh, but not a full comedy. A bit of effort might be required to connect the dots at the early part, but once we got the hang of it, it was really entertaining. My wife and I definitely had good time seeing this movie and we would recommend to see it when it's officially released (likely next week). Just be ready for bit of violence but as long as you like hand to hand fight scenes and if you are fan of Ma Dong-seok, then this definitely is a must see.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Special thanks to @rmndsr who had given us the opportunity to acquire the tickets for this movie
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