Explosive
Summary
I had no expectations for Officer Black Belt as I hadn’t even seen a trailer for it, but it’s got a great story, memorable characters and some brutal fight scenes in the second half.
Plot: An indefinite contractor at the Ministry of Justice, who closely manages those wearing electronic ankle bracelets, assists in probation officers’ work, and suppresses verbal abuse and violence that occurs in case of emergency.
Review: I literally knew nothing about Officer Black Belt before watching it; I was bored at the weekend and was looking for something to watch and saw it on Netflix. The story sounded interesting, and I love South Korean movies, so I gave it a shot. I’m glad I did as it’s one of the best action movies I’ve seen for a while.
The story is about Kim Seon-min (Kim Seong-gyoon), a probation officer whose goal is crime prevention; he begins closely monitoring people subject to electronic ankle bracelets together with Lee Jeong-do (Kim Woo-bin), a 9th-degree black belt in martial arts including taekwondo, kendo, and judo.
It’s an interesting idea for a film and something I haven’t really seen before; the first half is quite light in tone as Lee Jeong-do just wants to do things which are fun. He has blonde highlights in his hair, and he lives a happy go lucky life delivering food and playing videogames with his friends. One night he saves a probation officer from being fatally injured and is offered a job as a martial arts officer. He thinks it sounds fun and agrees but as the story progresses, he realises helping people is what brings him joy, he removes the hair dye and becomes a more serious individual.
I love all the characters and found myself genuinely caring about them; a scene early has Lee-Jeong-do and his friends taken out for dinner by Kim Seon-min. I was waiting for some mockery or something to go wrong, but this movie has sincerity where people show each other respect. It’s a rare thing to see these days and was my favourite non-action scene of the movie.
The first half doesn’t have too many fight scenes but it’s worth the wait as the second half gets pretty dark and there are some brutal fights. The final showdown is satisfying against someone who hurts children, so he deserves a worse fate than he gets.
Overall, Officer Black Belt may sound like a silly romp but it’s one of the best Netflix films I’ve seen with characters to care about, an engaging story, hateful villains and some bone crunching action in the second half.