Kill Boksoon Parent Guide

Gil Boksoon (Jeon Do-yeon) is a single mother working hard to keep her daughter in an elite private school. To the outside world she’s an event planner, but in reality, she’s an elite assassin working for a murder-for-hire firm called MK. Keeping up a lie, being at the top of her field, and parenting a teenager is a lot for one woman to handle. As her relationship with her daughter, Jae-young (Kim Si-a), deteriorates, Boksoon also runs afoul of some powerful people who can decide whether she lives or dies.

John Wick has done a lot for modern action films, enough to write a thesis on, but what I am personally most grateful for is that we’ve now moved past the shaky-cam fast cut style that was prevalent early in this century, and we’re seeing a reemergence of steady, creative camera work to capture fight scenes. Director Byun Sung-hyun really pushes the boundaries of cinematography and employs excellent fight choreography to produce some of the best action scenes I’ve seen in a while. If you like action and don’t mind violence, Kill Boksoon has a lot to offer visually and creatively.

Outside of the cinematography and choreography, there isn’t much else to praise. Jeon Do-yeon’s performance is fantastic, but I feel the script doesn’t do her justice. At 139 minutes this film is far too long for a basic action thriller. The script needs a lot more editing to tighten up the story, remove some extraneous elements, and gain some focus. That said, the world the writers have created is interesting and I didn’t dislike my time in it. It was just a lot of time.

Since this is an assassin thriller I’m sure you can guess that the violence levels are quite high. Guns, knives, swords, and other weapons are used throughout to deadly and bloody effect. There is also some underage smoking, swearing, and one sex scene. In other words, this is not a film the whole family can enjoy. For adult genre fans with no qualms about bloody violence, I recommend this movie for its creativity and visuals, and how it fits into modern moviemaking trends. But for most other audiences, you won’t miss the 139 minutes.