Saturday, October 7, 2023

(2023) Ballerina - A Dark Thriller Movie with too Few Stylish Action Scenes

Like my usual activity on Friday night after coming back from work, I would browse through new released movies on Netflix and came across this seemingly interesting one. Well without further ado, I will get straight to it.

Brief Story Line

Ok-ju (Jeon Jong-seo - Money Heist: Korea - Joint Economic Area, Nothing Serious etc) was an ex bodyguard who was very close friend with Min-hee (Park Yu-rim - Miraculous Brothers TV series etc). After receiving a personal message from Min-hee, Ok-ju went on a vendetta mission to fulfill her request. Through a bit of investigation, she found out the person responsible for Min-hee's misery was Choi (Kim Ji-hoon - Love to Hate You TV series etc).

However, Ok-ju's mission might not be so easy as Choi was part of a large operation.

So what would happen to Ok-ju? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Yes that was basically the point of the movie. It had a very simple premise and short duration of only 93 minutes including closing credit which did not have any mid or post end credit scene. Frankly I was hoping for a truly violent full action movie but this was not exactly what I anticipated. It did have few action sequence in the beginning, middle but the creme of the crop was definitely the finale. It was truly well executed, brutal and even quite stylish. However the rest of them were pretty standard.

The story itself was OK, with plenty of flashbacks to show the close friendship of Ok-ju and Min-hee. There seem to be a lot of filter used during these scenes which might be the style liked by the Director & writer Lee Chung-hyun (The Call, Born to Spy etc). But the intriguing part was actually the relationship between the two women that also roughly explained the reason Ok-ju would do anything for Min-hee.

Jeon Jong-seo was quite convincing in her role especially in the action scenes which should not come as a surprise with her past experience. This also marked a reunion with her co-star in Money Heist: Korea, Kim Ji-hoon who portrayed a completely different character. Aside from them there was also another support character played by Shin Se-hwi and few other minor characters who I believed were pretty well known (I am sure my wife who is a fan of Korean dramas & movies would have recognized).

This movie was categorized as thriller but for me it felt more like an action drama. The movie's tone was dark and gloomy without any light moment. I like the actions particularly the finale but I would definitely have enjoyed it better had there were more of them, since they were actually quite well executed. Some might call the movie stylish and it might be true for them, but to me it was not sufficient. Overall it was just an OK film which did not truly stood out and remembered fondly by me. So if you are fan of such type of movie then you can give it a try and possibly like it. However if you prefer full action film or a truly stylish one, then this might not satisfy you. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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