Officer Black Belt

Story: Lee Jeong-do (Kim Woo-bin) only does in life what's fun for him. This mainly includes Taekwondo, Judo and Kendo. He loves to win, and so he has a black belt in all three martial arts. He also loves eSports and always plays in a team with his friends when his father doesn't need him to run a delivery for his small restaurant. During one of his deliveries, he sees a probation officer being attacked by a convict with an ankle bracelet. Jeong-do helps him and then gets an award for his heroic action. Since the probation officer has been injured, Kim Seon-min (Kim Sung-kyun) needs someone new until he is back on his feet again. He asks Jeong-do for help and after giving it some thought he agrees to give the job a try. His daily work actually only consists of calling convicts when the battery of their ankle bracelet is running low, but sometimes the calls are ignored or one of the convicts violates the nightly curfew. Then Jeong-do and his partner Seon-min have to go out to hammer some reason back into the convicts' heads, by force if necessary. A particularly bad case revolves around a man who will soon be released from prison and has raped several children. Most of those criminals backslide, and so the probation officers keep a particularly wary eye on him, which will turn out to be a good decision ...

Review: First of all, it has to be mentioned that "Officer Black Belt" isn't a bad movie, but it takes some rather incomprehensible paths that turn it into a bit of a disappointment. First and foremost, there is the marketing, which advertises the flick as an action comedy; and a few minutes into the movie, you actually think you're getting a buddy comedy. However, the aforementioned sex offenders who molest children ultimately turn out to be the focus of the story. This theme is in stark contrast to a light-hearted plot, and so the humor slowly dwindles away as the movie progresses. In addition, you also would assume that there are some nice fight scenes, but even though there is not much to complain about in this respect, the fights are not that easy to stomach. They often create an atmosphere in which it's all about life or death. With all that, it's understandably difficult to figure out who is supposed to be the actual target audience of this flick. Korea is known for blurring the lines between genres - and usually I'm all for it - but this time things get a bit lost.

Nevertheless, initially it's nice to see some humorous elements along with such an obvious combination of a black belt teenager who has to fight his way through some bad guys. If only it were that simple, though. Because the movie refrains from going too much into that direction. Fights are over before you can even say "roundhouse kick". At least it becomes clear that Jeong-do is basically undefeatable. And in a pretty nice scene, the boy is also shown that not all problems can be solved with physical violence, as people's motives for their actions are a bit more complex than that. At this point, Seon-min, played by Kim Sung-kyun ("Sinkhole") takes over. It would have been nice if the characters had been fleshed out a little more so that the implied buddy atmosphere could have really come into effect. Because during the supervisor's first meal with Jeong-do and his friends, it becomes clear that the chemistry would have been there. We have the same problem with Jeong-do's father, who isn't written completely flat, but just doesn't get enough scenes to make him genuinely interesting.

Jeong-do's friends are no exception to that either. They appear at the beginning, then they are completely dropped, only to play a leading role again towards the end. But that's not the only example that gives the movie something episodic. It takes almost until the second half of the movie until we finally get to the real hook of the story: a particularly disgusting child molester. Until then, the action comedy seems disoriented, and everything feels like a drawn-out introduction. It's irritating that the second half could almost stand on its own, and that apparently quite a lot happens, but you still feel like the movie is a bit too long. On closer inspection, "Officer Black Belt" would probably have been better as a six-part series, especially since the characters could then have been fleshed out a bit more. The drama that revolves around one of the "colleagues" would also have worked so much better that way. But as things are you just have to ask yourself why his fate should affect you - after you had to remind yourself who that guy actually was again ...

As a series, however, the story would have needed some more exciting cliffhangers. Because the movie is only gripping in those moments when it gets grittier and the officers actually have to fight for their lives - a (bloody) ambush is particularly memorable in this respect. Nevertheless, Kim Woo-bin ("Alienoid") manages to hold the movie together. He has the necessary charisma, and despite his 35 years, you can even believe that he is in his early twenties. In addition, he scores points in the action scenes. But that's where I had actually expected a little more, as director Jason Kim is also responsible for the series "Bloodhounds" and was able to incorporate some pretty hard-hitting action scenes with great choreography there. This time, even though you can still feel the urgency and the life-threatening atmosphere in the later fights, you are missing the last spark and a few neatly choreographed scenes. But the level of violence is just right. Never too brutal, but you are always able to feel every blow and sometimes you even have to flinch when you see a baseball bat come down on somebody's head. Because although this is supposedly an action comedy, something like this can end fatally in this world, too.

However, the obvious problem with the story is the child molester as the villain. Which is generally not a bad idea for a villain, because that way we are extremely emotionally involved, and we eagerly cheer on the hero to keep mauling the villain with punches and kicks during the finale. But the topic also leads to a few disturbing scenes. The subject simply seems inappropriate for the world that is presented to us. In a news program that runs in the background, it is even criticized that sex offenders in Korea are released much earlier than in other countries. So, if Jason Kim cared so much about this topic, he could have made something darker out of it, like his already mentioned Netflix show. Instead, he tries to add some of his successful comedy "Midnight Runners" into the mix - and it just doesn't work. It feels like we get two different movies that are both not bad, but - like oil and water - they simply do not mix. The ending confirms this problem once more. Which makes you wonder whether this Netflix production has once again fallen victim to the streaming service's policy of appealing to as many viewers as possible, but in doing so ultimately scaring off most of them ...

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