We’re back with a new film review, this time we’re taking a look at ‘Yaksha: Ruthless Operations’.
The action film is a Netflix production written by Na Hyeon who has also written for ‘The Prison’, ‘Southbound’ and ‘Forever the moment’.
Plot
We follow along as prosecutor Han Hi-Joon (Park Hae-Soo) has to give up on a case as his team made a mistake during the process. Instead of pretending he didn’t know and continuing with the case, he decides to play it fair. He needs to let the business tycoon Lee Chan-Kil (Choi Won-Young) go.
We skip a couple of years and we see Han Ji-Hoon has been transferred to a dead-end job with a manager who’s more out of the office than in it.
When an opportunity comes for him to take on a case for the NIS, he grabs it with both hands. Director Yeom Jeong-Won played by Jin Kyung explains what needs to happen. He packs his suitcase and flies to Shenyang, China. The team there have been fabricating case reports and it’s his task to go and check what’s going on and get the team to toe the line.
That’s easier said than done, especially when the team doesn’t take you seriously and the team is composed of badasses.
The head of said team is Ji Kang-In played by Sol Kyung-Gu who does an incredible job at portraying the hard as nails, mentally tortured agent.
There’s also Jeong-dae played by GOT7’s Jin Young who has a pet iguana. There’s also Hui-Won, played by Lee El and Jae-Kyu (Song Jae-Rim).
The team is trying to find former NIS agent Moon Byung-Uk who has been kidnapped by the Japanese. They discover that his daughter is also kidnapped. They try to figure out what they’re hiding and why the Japanese want it.
Overall
It’s a thrilling plot, if not a bit of a mess here and there. I think it would have been great if some of the characters had been a bit more developed and had a clearer character arc.
At times the film was quite predictable and some plot twists felt like they were there purely for there to be a plot twist. However, despite all of that, I did have a good time watching the film. It’s a fun ride though I wouldn’t necessarily watch it again,
Lastly, I’m afraid this one doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test unfortunately.
Watch the trailer below.
