Yaksha: Ruthless Operations

Making a movie like this should be considered a crime because it steals our valuable time for nothing. I hope you find this review before you watch this movie so that you do not waste 2 hours of your valuable time. This movie has everything that a bad movie should have: The storyline is totally absurd and lack realism; the characters are the embodiment of every cliché you've seen in the movie; actions are laughable; and the shooting and editing are extremely poorly done. I would not be surprised if this movie gets the "Worst Movie of the Year" award. I would rate "The Swamp Thing" higher than this one. First of all, the story is less believable than "Johnny English" (by Mr. Bean). You may think I am joking, but I am not. Korean spies engage in a machine gun shootout with Chinese police and kill dozens of them in the middle of a city, and they attack the Japanese embassy even without covering their face and identity. Basically, they declared a war against China and Japan, but apparently, China and Japan don't say a word about. And, those who caused the mayhem are supposed to be patriots. The writer and the director of this movie have the mental ability of a 3rd grader (because I knew better when I was a 4th grader). The common sense is missing from not only the major plot but also almost every single scene. Just take the scene in which the team leader of the Korean black ops sets up the protagonist (the prosecutor sent from Korea) with a hooker and drug, and it was supposed to be a practical joke. Using drug is punishable by death in China. What a wonderful joke! How about the woman with him? She will be executed! The editing of this movie is completely amateurish. The scenes jump from one to another abruptly, and some action scenes are cut off in the middle of action (most likely because the scenes were poorly shot, and they didn't have usable clips). The story itself was nonsensical, but this poor editing made it even more painful to watch it. The acting is also terrible. I cannot fault the actors because I guess Anthony Hopkins and Jack Nicolson couldn't have acted better if they act using such badly written scripts. Korean movies have come a long way, and Koreans are making some great movies and dramas. But movies like this garbage undermine the effort of other great Korean movie makers. If you are the producers of this movie, please stop making movies so that you don't drag down other great movie makers.

Let's cut to the chase: I have several Korean films on my IMDb list of 165+ BEST OF THE BEST and I have also praised several K-Dramas. The problem with Korean productions is that the writers can't resist overthinking the story. Which is the case here. The opening is clever -- a prosecutor who believes that laws cannot be bent or broken is loaned out to a Black Ops team. Clever! Downhill from there .as the twists and turns take over the story, leaving the viewer dazed and confused. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

INTERNATIONAL DIRTY WORKS. This is a spy thriller that takes the proverbial "web of intrigue" to new levels. Yaksha Ruthless Operations also takes the "blurred ethical lines" so indicative of the antihero stories to incredible extremes, as operatives from South Korea, North Korea, China, and Japan all face off and quadruple-cross each other and have secret affairs and have their own reasons for doing what they're doing. Some of these reasons are likely to surprise American audiences who are, even after decades of Tony Soprano, Walter White, and The Batman-style stories, still likely to view such stories through a good/evil prism and not the battle royale that emerges in this movie.

...except that it only cost a fraction to make, that it was made by filmmakers who seem to still believe that movies should be fun, and that it employs every cliché in the spy movie playbook, including probably some not yet invented. The movie stars the veteran Sol Kyung-gu as Ji Kang-in, one of these rugged agents whose standard operating procedure indeed seems ruthless. He has a pre-credits teaser in Hong Kong at his disposal to prove his worth looking for a double agent and leaving bodies everywhere. If I attempted to write a plot summary, I would most likely be writing well into next year, so let's say that the action shifts to Shenyang in northeast China four years later. The former Seoul prosecutor Han Ji-hoon (Park Hae-soo) comes to the city now representing NIS - South Koreas answer to CIA - to check out a supposed information leak. Is there a mole in agent Ji's team? Agent Ji sure hasn't found the one he been looking for himself. The banter between Sol Kyung-gu and Park Hae-soo as polar opposites makes for some good fun in between a lot of shooting and a lot of plot. The movie's politics is equally offensive to everyone, from the North Koreans to the Japanese, while the Chinese apparently couldn't care less as the Shenyang police is mostly nowhere in sight despite all the gunfights going on in broad nightlight. The idea of Shenyang as a hotbed for spies is a bit like Istanbul in "From Russia With Love", so maybe this is what the 1960s Cold War spy thrillers have developed into for the 2020s? It's fast-paced fun, anyway, full of blood and guts. But it's not a movie to think too deeply about.