We’re back with a new K-movie review, this time we’re writing about ‘Night in Paradise’.
‘Night in Paradise’ is a 2020 film written, directed and produced by Park Hoon-jung who also wrote ‘The Witch: Subversion Part 1’. If you liked watching ‘Vinzenco’, keep on reading.
Plot
The story is about Park Tae-goo, played by actor Uhm Tae-goo. Tae-goo is part of Yang Do-Soo’s Gang. He gets an offer from the rival gang Bukseong to start working for them. Tae-goo however, doesn’t accept.
His sister Jae-Kyung (Jang Young-Nam) and his niece Ji-Eun (Ahn Se-Bin) are coming over for a visit; however, they get assassinated.
Tae-goo takes desperate measures for revenge and has to flee to Jeju Island. There he goes into hiding at the house of Kuto who’s an arms dealer. Kuto’s niece Jae-Yeon, portrayed by Jeon Yeo-bin, lives there as well and is struggling with a life-threatening disease.
The two gangs quickly discover where Tae-goo is hiding, because of a lot of backstabbery. They go to chase him and there’s even more betrayal happening. Never trust the mafia, kids.
I can’t really say more without revealing major spoilers so I’ll leave it at this.
Overall
While ‘Night in Paradise’ is a very enjoyable watch, it also doesn’t really reinvent the wheel. However, that doesn’t make it uninteresting.
The performances were absolutely stellar. I really enjoyed watching the two leads; Uhm Tae-goo and Jeon Yeo-bin together. They had an intriguing chemistry and performed really well. I also wanted to mention the acting of Cha Seung-Won, that man is brilliant in everything I’ve seen him in so far.
‘Night in Paradise’ has a lot of beautiful scenes. It’s kind of hard not to have those when filming in Jeju Island. It did feel like an ad sometimes for the Island, but that was easily overlooked.
Sometimes I did feel like there was a bit of a pacing problem. Some scenes felt a bit too slow, while others were over too quickly.
All things considered I would still recommend watching ‘Night in Paradise’ if you enjoy a good mafia thriller where you can trust no one.
The movie is available on Netflix.
Here’s the trailer.
