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Kill Boksoon is so-called because Gil Bok-soon (Jeon Do-yeon) is the best hired killer in the business, and we’ll first see her up against Kim Gwang-il, aka Oda Shinichiro – who waxes lyrical about being the best of the best, because in the world of Samurai, he’s kind of a big deal. However, already, our heroine has stripped him down to his underwear, and left him in the middle of the road at night.
And, thus begins a daft premise in which she can take posh high tea with her friends in the afternoon, yet is a cold-blooded killer by night. Like you do.
Still, at least this company has rules: They can’t kill anyone underage, they must only take on ‘shows’ (aka missions or hits) sanctioned by the Company, and they they must only attempt shows sanctioned by the Company, so nothing off the books. In fact, there’s a lot of chat about the honours they need to abide by, but you’re just waiting for the next big fight to happen.
Because this is a drama and unnatural things have to happen, someone is carrying out unsanctioned shows, and are very thorough in their work, so the company has decided that they should be able to handle the punishment themselves, if they believe it’s one of their own.
Added in to the plot, Boksoon gets a choice between two A-level ‘shows’: one in Seoul, Korea, the other in Vladivostok, Russia, but for whichever she chooses, she’ll be training a new young female, so, a potential successor?
Kill Boksoon features a great fight scene in a bar, with everything revolving around one character stood in the middle. Too much of this 2hr+ movie is just chat, when they could’ve trimmed that down, and had more brawls like this one. I know it feels like we’ve been spoiled with action films like John Wick, but while those are OTT, they could still find something inbetween.
Elsewhere, Boksoon has a home life with her daughter, Gil Jae-yeong (Kim Si-a), who’s seeing another girl at school, and she knows her mum would flip out if she knew. Plus, as an aside, I like the meals they eat, with lots of different dishes, all of which are good for you. It shows how much improved we could all eat, even though they do seen to use an infinite number of dishes, so that’s an awful lot of washing up.
Overall, Kill Boksoon features some very well-choreographed fight scenes, but it’s just too uneven, trying to make us think it’s possible for a hired killer to have a happy family life, and keep that hidden from them. Reminds me of the recent BBC1 series, Better, where corrupt detective Lou Slack hobnobbed with extreme baddies whilst maintaining a similar facade to her nearest and dearest.
I know you can expect Korean action films to get away with being batship mentil, but it still requires too much suspension of disbelief.
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
Kill Boksoon is on Netflix from March 31st, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Check out the trailer below:
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 139 minutes
Release date: March 31st 2023
Studio: Netflix
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Score: 5/10
Director: Sung-hyun Byun
Screenplay: Sung-hyun Byun
Cast:
Gil Bok-soon: Jeon Do-yeon
Young Gil Bok-soon: Park Se-hyun
Cha Min-kyu: Sol Kyung-gu
Young Cha Min-kyu: Lee Jae-wook
Director Cha Min-hee: Esom
Han Hee-seong: Koo Kyo-hwan
Gil Jae-yeong: Kim Si-a
Kim Yeong-ji: Lee Yeon
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.