While we’re not implying that writer and director Byun Sung-hyun’s Kill Boksoon was designed and precision-engineered specifically to capitalize on the global popularity and success of the John Wick franchise, there are more than a few similarities between the two ass-kicking action extravaganzas.
Both revolve around a middle-aged assassin trying to leave behind a life of wanton death and mayhem in order to focus on family, with Jeon Do-yeon’s title hero having grown distant from her teenage daughter after dedicating her entire adult life to contract killing in this case.
There’s also an intricate underworld of hired guns headed by a mysterious and enigmatic figurehead with its own inbuilt mythology and terminology that finds hits referred to as “shows” and staged crime scenes known as “sets,” while there’s even a training facility for the next generation of would-be hitmen and women to train in the art of surreptitious murder.
However, Kill Boksoon stands on its own two feet as a pulse-pounding and eminently entertaining slab of high-octane excess, packed to bursting point with hand-to-hand combat, weapon-assisted carnage, and several subplots that dovetail neatly together by the time the third act rolls around.
An 86 percent Rotten Tomatoes score once again showcases that international genre films streaming exclusively on Netflix are regularly superior to their bland, star-stuffed Hollywood counterparts, while the fact Kill Boksoon has debuted as the third top-viewed feature on the entire platform – after FlixPatrol revealed it to have decimated the Top 10 in 81 countries around the world – underlines that the overseas actioner is one of the strongest weapons in the platform’s arsenal.