Yaksha: Ruthless Operations (2022) - Netflix Korean Action Thriller

[One Armed Boxer]

Hitting Netflix last Friday, 'Yaksha: Ruthless Operations' marks the sophomore directorial feature from Nah Hyeon after 2017's 'The Prison', and stars Sol Kyung-gu as a secret agent operating out of Mainland China. I gave it the full review treatment over at COF - 

https://cityonfire.com/yaksha-ruthless-operations-2022-review/

[laagi]

Lots of bark barely any bite! An increasing problem in many recent korean productions.

If one of the best action scenes is within the first 2 minutes of the movie it's usually a bad sign. Not that there's not any action left within the movie, there's plenty of it. But it's very toned down in a PG-13 kind of way, repetitive with most of it just being people shooting and pointing guns at each other and not well captured for the most part save for one or two exceptions.

The story is very average and nothing fresh or dare I say new. Again if well executed I wouldn't mind. Also for the most part utterly predictable with the few twists and turns it's throwing at you. At one point going as far as really explaining one twist. To make sure to even insult the laziest viewer's intelligence.

I'll give it credit for the performances of the actors and some nice visuals. Other than that what's left is an overly long (at least 30 minutes could've been easily cut) average at best spy thriller which just ends up being rather dull and boring for the most part. No amount of action can help if it can't convey any sense of excitement to the viewer.

Teasing a part two doesn't really help either. But I guess that's a given to the Netflix formula. I overall felt pretty disappointed and confirmed with my increasing concern where the korean movie industry is heading.

Edited April 14, 2022 by laagi