A Company Man is 2012 Korean movie about a contract killer operating in a modern day corporate structure. It is an action drama.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
The film stars So Ji-sub as Hyung-do. Hyung-do is white collar worker employed at the corporate office of a metal works company. He's a loyal mid-management type who's married to his job, and, he goes about his daily 9-5 routine as so many other people do in this world. He also happens to be a professional assassin, as is, apparently, everyone else at the entire office he works at. This a legit company with typical business concerns, but they also kill people. There are several dozen people or so that work for this company, and everybody working here is well aware of the company's dual purpose. From the chairman on down to the receptionist at the front desk, everybody has their part to play in making sure the company is a success on both fronts.
There must be a lot of people that need to be killed in Korea, in order for a corporation such as this to have sprung up to be outsourced to handle all the contract killing work that's seemingly available. While the existence of such a company as this is hard to fathom, it does provide for somewhat of an interesting dynamic here; office politics, personal employee interactions, and the like, are on display (just as within any small to mid-size company work environment the world over). There's board meetings, company retreats, promotions vied for, office parties, etc. It's one big happy work/family that seems perfectly content with what they're doing.
It's an odd and intriguing premise to watch play out, one that posits a work environment where conversations generally go something like this: "Hey, Good job everyone on getting that shipment of girders out to Japan on schedule." "Let's all welcome back Mrs. Kim from maternity leave." "Mr. So, you're late for knife fighting practice." "Project team B, we need that cost analysis on the Jeju project asap." "Today is Ms. Bae's birthday party." "Now, everyone be on time tomorrow, cause we have lots of people to execute this week." It is strange.
Hyung-do is a rising star in the company, and its best assassin, He's tiring of the "corporate grind" involved with his job however, and he's also becoming more & more sentimental with the people he's continually charged with killing off. Eventually, he wants to "retire" from the business, but as one would imagine, this is a company that is somewhat difficult to extricate one's self from on your own terms.
It's not hard to figure out where this all headed from there. But before that happens, the film devotes the middle hour or so of its story to the retiring hit-man looking after the young protégé he was supposed to eliminate, and subsequently romancing and falling in love with his mom along the way. I'm game for a good romance story intermixed with my action, but the love angle here is poorly executed; it drags along & is too underwritten for you to engage yourselves into the romantic relationship between the hit-man & mother.
There's also some nonsense back story angle about how the mother was a former pop star/singer in her youth, and the hit-man was once the young love/star struck dork who delivered meals to her. This "sub" story was told via various flashbacks from the past, and it's all terribly unnecessary to the romantic story in the present. Spend some money on a second unit writing team will you?
Eventually, you arrive to the climax of the story, then revenge & bloodshed ensue!
There are a few decent action set pieces here and there, but this is not a balls to the wall action film by any means. What action scenes there are, albeit well done, are few and far between. That's not really the problem though. It's mostly undermined by its weakly written retirement/romantic story (which should have been a highlight, instead of a detriment). My lasting impression of this film was that it was OK, but, it was also very disjointed and muddled down a bit by its lackluster screen writing.
Bottom Line: 6 to 7 range. It's a 6 star film IMO. Not mandatory. Watchable though.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
The film stars So Ji-sub as Hyung-do. Hyung-do is white collar worker employed at the corporate office of a metal works company. He's a loyal mid-management type who's married to his job, and, he goes about his daily 9-5 routine as so many other people do in this world. He also happens to be a professional assassin, as is, apparently, everyone else at the entire office he works at. This a legit company with typical business concerns, but they also kill people. There are several dozen people or so that work for this company, and everybody working here is well aware of the company's dual purpose. From the chairman on down to the receptionist at the front desk, everybody has their part to play in making sure the company is a success on both fronts.
There must be a lot of people that need to be killed in Korea, in order for a corporation such as this to have sprung up to be outsourced to handle all the contract killing work that's seemingly available. While the existence of such a company as this is hard to fathom, it does provide for somewhat of an interesting dynamic here; office politics, personal employee interactions, and the like, are on display (just as within any small to mid-size company work environment the world over). There's board meetings, company retreats, promotions vied for, office parties, etc. It's one big happy work/family that seems perfectly content with what they're doing.
It's an odd and intriguing premise to watch play out, one that posits a work environment where conversations generally go something like this: "Hey, Good job everyone on getting that shipment of girders out to Japan on schedule." "Let's all welcome back Mrs. Kim from maternity leave." "Mr. So, you're late for knife fighting practice." "Project team B, we need that cost analysis on the Jeju project asap." "Today is Ms. Bae's birthday party." "Now, everyone be on time tomorrow, cause we have lots of people to execute this week." It is strange.
Hyung-do is a rising star in the company, and its best assassin, He's tiring of the "corporate grind" involved with his job however, and he's also becoming more & more sentimental with the people he's continually charged with killing off. Eventually, he wants to "retire" from the business, but as one would imagine, this is a company that is somewhat difficult to extricate one's self from on your own terms.
It's not hard to figure out where this all headed from there. But before that happens, the film devotes the middle hour or so of its story to the retiring hit-man looking after the young protégé he was supposed to eliminate, and subsequently romancing and falling in love with his mom along the way. I'm game for a good romance story intermixed with my action, but the love angle here is poorly executed; it drags along & is too underwritten for you to engage yourselves into the romantic relationship between the hit-man & mother.
There's also some nonsense back story angle about how the mother was a former pop star/singer in her youth, and the hit-man was once the young love/star struck dork who delivered meals to her. This "sub" story was told via various flashbacks from the past, and it's all terribly unnecessary to the romantic story in the present. Spend some money on a second unit writing team will you?
Eventually, you arrive to the climax of the story, then revenge & bloodshed ensue!
There are a few decent action set pieces here and there, but this is not a balls to the wall action film by any means. What action scenes there are, albeit well done, are few and far between. That's not really the problem though. It's mostly undermined by its weakly written retirement/romantic story (which should have been a highlight, instead of a detriment). My lasting impression of this film was that it was OK, but, it was also very disjointed and muddled down a bit by its lackluster screen writing.
Bottom Line: 6 to 7 range. It's a 6 star film IMO. Not mandatory. Watchable though.