Officer Black Belt

Office Black Belt is a South Korean action flick movie that is recently released on Netflix. It starred Kim Woo Bin who plays as Lee Jung-Do, an average joe who does things solely based on his enjoyment. Despite his unserious character, he is extremely good at martial arts and has a sense of strong responsibility and moral duty. He spends his time playing games with his friends but also works at his father’s chicken restaurant as the delivery guy. One day, after delivering chicken, he stumbled upon a fight and apparently, it was between a probationer and the martial arts officer who was monitoring these probationer. He ended up helping the officer and he was awarded the brave citizen award. During that time, he was then scouted by the managers of martial arts officers who managed violent offenders on probation. During the interview, he emphasizes that the job is going to be fun, otherwise he wouldn’t take it.

The story progresses to the point where Jung-Do works with violent probationers who are mostly sex crime offenders. These people are committing unthinkable crimes which have something to do with minor and digital sex crimes. The story was lighthearted at first but after knowing the offenders, it becomes dark. While there are many plot holes all around the film, it managed to keep me on toes because the fight was pretty intense. It was all mostly hand combat with knife action thrown in once in a while. I do appreciate the martial arts choreographer because it was pretty well-executed and was a good show for the fight.

Perhaps, the main criticism of this film was the plot holes scattered all around the film but considering that the core of the story is pretty sensitive and quite uneasy, it was best kept that way. When you watch the movie, you’ll also feel sympathy towards the victims and anger towards the criminals that were able to walk free and are still committing crimes despite being under surveillance and wearing ankle monitors. It was all unsettling despite the first part of the film being cheerful. It makes you wonder, how could monsters like those are all around us? The movie also shows that they are still likely to do the same offense and it was definitely unsettling to see.

The things that I like about the movie is that the ideals that the main characters tried to portray, he was the type of person who doesn’t care about monetary reward, all he cares about is if he has fun in the things he does.

When I first stumbled upon these film clips, I thought it was some type of series. It’s something I wished that this was made into a film and covered more than just sex offenders but perhaps murder too. When it comes to cinematography, certainly an internationally made Korean movie is one of its kind. It has striking visuals and always comes with trailers that hook you in and promises you a lot of great things. While most of the time, they are able to deliver ten out of ten, this was a little flop. I would have to only give it 6 out of 10 but still recommending this to watch especially if you're a fan of Kim Woo Bin and are looking for something new to watch this weekend. You can watch the trailer below!