Ever since the COVID lockdown, my sister has been urging me to watch South Korean shows and movies more and more.
And, don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried despite the initial hesitation.
Mostly because she asked nicely and raves about them and partially because if I can sit through some terrible anime then I should be able to give the live action stuff a break, right?
I’ve even watched some South Korean flicks with her in attendance or having her choose whatever we’re streaming.
But, the level of either cheesiness in the dialogue or costuming and overly computer graphically enhanced action sequences has always been a turn off.
I mean, I can usually handle one of those things being cheesy, but when two or more appear in a film, I’m immediately unable to pay attention to anything I’m watching.
I honestly think that it matters more to me to only have one unhealthy amount of cheese in the media I consume rather than all three at every turn.
However, I caved in and decided to watch Netflix’s “Mantis” last weekend in the hopes that a stronger martial arts center to the overall storyline would help keep my attention in case any of the cheese oozed out.
The trailer for Mantis was promising and since it’s brand new, I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Honestly, the only things I remotely enjoyed were the actual fight scenes and a small portion of the setting cinematography.
Mantis is a South Korean action thriller film co-written and directed by Lee Tae-sung in his feature debut for Netflix with co-writer Byun Sung-hyun.
The film stars Im Si-wan, Jo Woo-jin, Choi Hyun-wook, Sul Kyung-gu, and Park Gyu-young.
While it’s roughly 113 minutes long, it’s rated TV-MA, which is basically the same as a rated R flick with its intense violence, depictions of drugs and alcohol, and graphic content.
The film opens with two unnamed assassins discussing the sorry state of their shared profession and how hard it is for middle-aged killers to get contracts anymore.
Their conversation veers into complaining about the future that young adults are also facing while joking about how they “don’t want to work as hard” as the older generations.
One has to make an emergency bathroom break before they leave and heads into the dark convenience store – stepping over a body in a pool of blood.
Once he’s finished, he heads back for the vehicle only to be stopped by Cha Min-kyu (Kyung-gu) – the boss of M.K. Ent.
M.K. Ent. basically serves as the policing force for assassins that ignore the rules that protect their slice of the underworld.
Cha Min warns the assassin that since he broke the rules by killing a child then he will be dispatched shortly.
The assassin takes off running outside until he comes across Han-ul – also known as Mantis (Si-wan) - and the pair duel to the death.
Afterward, top assassin Mantis tells Cha Min that he wants his friend to join MK and the older man tells him to go on vacation and they’ll discuss it when he returns.
When Mantis comes back from vacation, he finds the hitman world in chaos and Cha Min dead – and things only get worse from there.
Overall, while I felt that the storyline was unnecessarily dramatic and confusing – until I learned that Mantis was a spin-off from another South Korean Netflix
movie called “Kill Boksoon.”
I would have to urge any viewers to not make the same mistake I did and catch that one first in the hopes that you don’t’ suffer through this movie like I did.
