The Plot - Unfortunately Having too Much Distractions and Unnecessary Twist that Made this Remake Less Entertaining than its Original

When I read the premise of this South Korean movie in the social media, I was quite intrigued. So my wife and I decided to see this during the weekend after it was released on Friday. After much consideration, we finally went to the cinema not too far from our home which was quite lucky for us as there were not that many studios showing the movie. OK, let's just get to it then.

Brief Story Line

Yeong-il (Gang Dong-won - Broker, Golden Slumber etc) and his team that consisted of Wol-cheon (Lee Hyun-wook - #Alive, Mine TV series etc), Jackie (Lee Mi-sook - Untold Scandal, Queen of Tears TV series etc) and Jeom-man (Tang Jun-sang - Dog Days, Racket Boys TV series etc) were working as contract killers who always cover their killing by perfectly designing them as accidents. After finishing their latest assignment, Yeong-il got a new request from Joo Young-seon (Jung Eun-chae - Nobody's Daughter Hae Won, Anna TV series etc) that was way more dangerous as it involved a high profile candidate for attorney general. 

Despite the worry from the team members and suspicion that their major competitor referred as Sweeper might be after them, Yeong-il still decided to go ahead with the job. Things got further complicated when Detective Yang (Kim Shin-rok - Rules of Dating, Beyond Evil TV series etc) started to investigate the case and the appearance of insurance broker Lee Chi-hyeon (Lee Moo-saeng - Nonyang: Deadly Sea, Cleaning Up TV series etc). 

So would Yeong-il and his team be able to complete their latest job while evading the police and the Sweeper? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said above, the premise of the movie was pretty interesting and I thought it would be a wonderfully crafted thriller. So I saw this with quite high anticipation hoping for some amazing scheming and plotting of perfectly executed plan of murder by accident. And the first part was actually promising where we were shown the brilliant planning by the leader Yeong-il. Subsequently the pace slowed down a bit with the various discussion among themselves. It got more exciting again when they were hired for a new job which understandably took some time to plan and execute. 

However, with the progress of the film, I felt the movie having a bit too much distraction especially on the existence of those amateur news creator on video sharing platforms. Personally to me and my wife, they were characters that did not exactly give real added value. Anyway, as the story continued, it managed to make us trying to guess what was happening (though my wife did suspect something which as usual turned out to be right in the end). Now it might have been cool if the ending stopped at a certain point, but then they had to add a brief scene that successfully confused us.

During the whole movie which had nice 99 minutes duration, I could sum up the experience as excited in the beginning, a bit boring for some time, pretty suspenseful in the middle, confusing before the end and quite satisfied before the final scene that left us puzzled. Oh there was no mid or post end credit scene here. My wife later found out that the film was actually a remake of 2009 Hong Kong movie titled Accident. We read the synopsis of it and both of us agreed that it was way better with clearer plot and the story made more sense. I tried searching for it on streaming service and it was available on Netflix. So I gave it a try (in speed mode) just to compare it and I was indeed more satisfied with the original.

The cast did their job adequately with Gang Dong-won quite suitable as the brooding leader and Lee Hyun-wook as a character who would surprise you. In addition to the names I mentioned earlier, there were also some pretty well known names like Lee Dong-hwi (The Roundup: Punishment, Glitch TV series etc) as Hauser and Lee Jong-suk (Decibel, Big Mouth TV series etc) as former member of Yeong-il's team referred to as Odd Eye. The movie was written and directed by Lee Yo-sup in what seemed to be his only second feature film after The Queen of Crime. 

Objectively speaking, this movie might be entertaining if you are looking for well executed murder covered as accident. But my wife and I felt that the twist was too complicated and confusing, and the ending was totally unclear. Not to mention there were additional characters who were a total distraction. And since I got the opportunity to watch the original which was straight forward, had clear direction and satisfying ending, it sadden me that the remake was not greatly done. Even though the main plot was almost similar, but the tweaks to add more twists did not make it better. So you can give this a try if you are interested in the premise, although there might be things that could make it less enjoyable (at least that's how it felt for us).

Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars