Monday, August 19, 2024

(2024) Drive - A Suspenseful Thriller with Plenty of Surprising Twists

The second movie that my wife and I saw last Saturday during our movie marathon was this South Korean thriller that had been promoted in the coming soon section for a while now. I just need to read the very brief synopsis to be fully intrigued, so naturally I would not want to miss seeing it in the cinema. OK, let's get to it now.

Brief Story Line

Yu na (Park Ju-hyun - Project SilenceMouse TV series etc) was a famous influencer who had a lot of followers/subscribers to her online streaming contents. Her manager Choi PD (Kim Do-yoon -Concrete Utopia, Song of the Bandits TV series etc) had been coordinating her works including attending to the release of brand new cosmetics.

During one of those events, Yu na met with the director of national TV station Mr. Na (Jung Woong-in - Seoul Vibe, The Good Bad Mother TV series etc) who she had been trying to get a large deal from. She also met with police detective Park Jung-sook (Kim Yeo-jin - Last Child, Vincenzo TV series etc) who was asking Yuna's help to promote messages for the police. After the event, Yu na fell asleep in her car and somehow woke up in its trunk the following morning. Still confused, Yu na got a call from a man telling her to earn money for him by acquiring donation from her viewers to a certain amount, otherwise she would be killed.

So what would happen to Yu na? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Well that was entertaining for me and my wife. Both of us felt the intensity was kept quite steadily throughout the time the lead character Yu na was being held captive inside the trunk of her car. It might have a standard opening of the background story, but once it reached the suspenseful part, it was enjoyable till the end. What made us in awe of the movie was the multiple surprising twists, although my wife still managed to suspect and rightly guessed one or two of them. It was certainly something that both of us liked in a film.

The lead cast Park Hyu-jun did her job nicely as she was convincing enough portraying the successful influencer and also when she was in the terrifying situation trying to do whatever she needed to do to save herself. Other cast were pretty decent in their roles. Aside from the names I mentioned, there were appearances of Jun Suk-ho (Where Would You Like To Go?, Moving TV series etc) as the kidnapper, Ha Do-gwon (The Boys, Through the Darkness or Sh**ting Stars TV series etc) as the police who got info about the kidnapping and several others in minor capacity. The movie was directed and written by Park Dong-hee in what seemed to be his directorial debut, a pretty amazing feat to my opinion considering the level of intensity he was able to create. 

The movie had a duration of around 90 minutes which was enough to cover the whole story. During its closing credits, my wife and I noticed that it was a 2022 production which surprised us a bit as it was only released in 2024. Not sure the reason for such delay as we could not find any info on it. Btw, there was no mid or post end credit scene here. The ending itself was pretty good as it still had some twists. However, both of us felt the conclusion was not powerful enough as we expected there would be a more clear consequence on certain actions. Nevertheless as a whole, it was still satisfying for us.

Overall this was a film that should be enjoyable for fans of thriller movie. The topic about influencer's life and behavior was interesting even if it only touched a little bit and not necessarily the real condition of all of them. The suspense was good and the twists were great addition. It was released in South Korea back in June 2024, but it did not perform well in the box office. Too bad, considering it had interesting premise and was entertaining. So if you are into suspenseful thriller movie with multiple twists, then I think you would enjoy this like we did.  

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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