Brief Story Line
Marco (Kang Tae-ju - Hello, Me! TV series etc) was a mixed Korean and Filipino (referred to as Kopino) who had to do illegal boxing to earn money for his mother's medication. He was asking the help from Mr. Kim (Lee Ki-young - Night in Paradise, Big Mouth TV series etc) to search for his father to assist his mother's operation.
After a while, Marco was informed that his father was also looking for him and asked him to come to South Korea. However, it turned out there were different parties who had their own motivation on Marco's safe arrival. Among them were his half older brother Han Yi-sa (Kim Kang-woo - New Year Blues, Artificial City TV series etc), a mysterious woman (Go Ara - Reply 1994, Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol TV series etc) and last but not least a professional killer known as Nobleman (Kim Seon-ho - Startup, Hometown Cha Cha Cha TV series etc) whose motive was unclear.
So what would happen to Marco and how would the story conclude? You can find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
This movie started off quite brightly with some violent scenes which both of us thought would be the theme of the whole film. But after that, we were thrown into the life of Marco in the Philippines which was fine to give us context on what he had to face. Plus a bit of introduction to few important characters but personally to me felt too detailed and slow paced. There was one scene near the forest which I think was overly long and my wife also agreed.
Anyway after going back and forth from South Korea and the Phillipines which took around one third of the movie, it finally got more exciting when Marco was going for that trip. It felt like a cat and mouse game and audience were kept on wondering who were the real bad guys and especially the Nobleman's actual purpose. However, as mysterious as they were, somehow my wife was still able to guess most of them, except for one thing which was the final twist towards the end. That was the best thing of the movie for both of us.
In term of action, we were expecting the movie to be full of them since many social media were pointing out the brutality/violence and some even said it was very bloody. So we were less satisfied when it turned out the action sequence were not as many as they were promoted to be. Aside from the finale which was well executed albeit too brief and few pretty suspenseful car chase scenes, the rest of the movie were more towards exploring the mystery.
The movie seemed to be heavily relying on the stardom of Kim Seon-ho who has pretty large fan base and promoted as his feature film debut. Although he did give a good performance as an extravagant killer and self-proclaimed professional with some humorous approach (my wife was amused by his behavior), I thought that Kang Tae-ju was amazing as well. He was able to match Kim Seon-ho and his English was definitely better (I read that he worked hard on this aspect). Aside from those two, Go Ara was OK but I was more impressed with Kim Kang-woo who was very convincing in his role. Btw my wife and I felt he has some resemblance to the popular actor Kwong Sang-woo.
This film was written and directed by Park Hoon-jung who was experienced in writing screenplay of I Saw the Devil, The Unjust and directing the critically acclaimed and successful The Witcher movies and few others. It has a duration of 118 minutes including closing credits which has some mid end credit scene but no post end credit scene. Oh, in case you are wondering, the title of this movie in South Korean literally meant Nobleman.
Overall this was an interesting enough action thriller film with few humorous scenes involving the lead character. There were intriguing parts about the intention of the people surrounding Marco and few action scenes. I also believe that this was a good feature movie debut for both Kim Seon-ho and Kang Tae-ju. So if you are interested in seeing an action thriller with the above attributes and you do not mind some of the overly detail part in the early stage of the film, I think you would enjoy this one.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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