Brief Story Line
Sergeant Lim Gyu-nam (Lee Je-hoon - Taxi Driver TV series, Collectors etc) had been in the North Korean military for 10 years. He was stationed at the border of DeMilitarized Zone with South Korea along with several lower ranked soldiers that included the young private Kim Dong-hyuk (Hong Xa-bin - Hopeless, Duty After School TV series etc). Before he was discharged though, Gyu-nam already had planned to escape to South Korea where he felt he could be free.
Unfortunately though, everything did not go according to his plan and things became more complicated with the appearance of Major Li Hyeon-sang (Koo Kyo-hwan - Parayste: The Grey TV series, Escape from Mogadishu etc) who ultimately did everything in his power to stop Gyu-nam.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Yes, this film had a very simple premise as it mainly focused on the effort of Gyu-nam to escape to South Korea. But through out the whole movie, we could see various things that could go wrong happened, which made it more exciting. What made me and my wife enjoyed this was the intensity of the escaping plan and the suspense during the execution. Although it took a bit long before the real intense moment started, but the build up was nicely done without making the pace too slow.
Such film would not be interesting without the ability of the lead actors. And to me Lee Je-hoon and Koo Kyo-hwan were pretty amazing. Their performance were truly convincing as the two put up everything they could to achieve their goals. Hong Xa-bin also provided additional color to the movie. Aside from those three, there were some more support cast like Seo Hyun-woo (A Shop for Killers TV series etc) as Major Cha, Lee Sung-wook (Project Wolf Hunting etc) as Lieutenant Hong, Lee Ho-chul (Crash TV series etc) and few others. There was even brief appearance of Esom (Kill Boksoon etc) and Song Kang (Sweet Home TV series etc) whom both of us did not recognize due to his different looks here.
The movie itself had only 94 minutes duration. It did not have any mid or post end credit scene and the ending was very conclusive which was satisfying for us. I was also delighted that the CGV Grand Indonesia studio that we saw this had a better than expected sound system and they seemed to have improved the screen brightness cause we could see everything quite clearly even though some of the scenes were in the dark night. The film was directed and written by the experienced Lee Jong-pil (Samjin Company English Class, Born to Sing etc) and Kwon Seong-hwi (Rebound, The Spy Gone North etc) respectively. And it looked like the South Korean audience embraced the movie as by the time I wrote this post, it already made to the top 10 there.
For an action thriller film, I thought this one was pretty entertaining. There was enough action and intense moments particularly when the escape and pursuit began. Although the reason of Gyu-nam wanting to go to the South was simply mentioned as looking for freedom, but we could understand it because we have read a lot of news about the North. It was also good of the director not to expose the distinct difference of the two countries but instead showing it through some dialogues between Gyu-nam and Major Hyeon-sang. However, it still felt a bit like the movie had political agenda of anti North-Korea.
Overall this was an enjoyable movie if you are looking for intensity and suspense. There was a bit of melodramatic moment but not too extreme. The only part that I personally thought was a bit irrelevant was the appearance of the Nomads who seemed to be included to make the film more exciting. But as an action thriller film, it was definitely worth to watch. You can certainly give this a try and should be easy to do since it's currently playing in all major Indonesia cinema chains.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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