Luck-Key

Hyeong-wook is a professional killer. He works meticulously, leaves no trace and plans every detail. One day he goes to a bathhouse, slips and hits his head, and loses his memory. In the same bathhouse there is an actor with no money; no work, rent owing, and unhappy with his life. He sees the locker key on the floor and swaps it for his own. From then the killer believes he is an actor, while the actor moves into the killer's home, money and locker. Then the killer takes a part in an action series on television and starts remembering things during the fight scenes. Lee Kae-byeok directs. Yoo Hai-jin plays the killer and Lee Joon the actor. The film is adapted from Japanese cinema; the same story had been made in Japan and that film did well too. The humour is built on contrast: one has the real skill without knowing why, the other makes a living pretending and is inside real danger. The Korean version widens the emotional side of the characters and the register changes in the second half. Yoo Hai-jin had worked for years in supporting parts in Korean cinema and this became his most watched leading role. It did good business in Korea. Its limit is structure; the emotional strand in the second half slows the pace and the romantic section feels unnecessary. Who it is for: viewers who like Korean comedy and swapped identity plots. Who it is not for: it is predictable, the shifts in register abrupt, and the running time long.