JP Nunez
We’ve all seen films about hitmen before. Hell, just a few months ago, Netflix released a movie called Hit Man, and it proved to be a big success. These contract killers have been a cinematic mainstay for decades, so at first blush, it might not seem wise to make an entire anthology film about them. After all, how many different stories can you tell about a guy hired to commit murder? Well according to the Fantasia plot synopsis for The Killers, a lot. It intrigued the hell out of me when I first read it, so I just had to give this movie a watch and see what the hype was all about.
The Killers was written and directed by Kim Jong-kwan, Roh Deok, Chang Hang-jun, and Lee Myung-Se, and it stars a huge cast that includes Shim Eun-kyung, Yeon Woo-jin, Hong Xa-bin, Oh Yeon-a, and Ko Chang-seok. The film is composed of four unconnected stories about hired killers, and each one puts its own unique spin on the hitman genre.
The Killers starts off with “Metamorphosis,” a vampire story about a man who manages to escape a group of thugs sent to kill him. This is the only genuine horror segment in the movie, but it’s not just a straight up spookfest. It actually starts off as a slow-burn noir thriller with just a hint of horror, and soon afterwards, it turns into a pseudo-mystery that manages to keep your eyes glued to the screen even though you know exactly what’s going on.
Then, in the final few minutes, “Metamorphosis” finally goes all-in on its bloodsucking premise, and it does not disappoint. The ending is admittedly rather predictable, but surprisingly, that’s not a problem. It wraps up the hitmen’s story in the best and most satisfying way possible, so you’ll barely even notice the lack of originality.
Next up, The Killers gives us “Contractors,” a tale about three contract killers who’ve been tasked with taking out a college professor. At first, this segment seems to follow a fairly standard (albeit exaggerated) genre blueprint, but soon enough, you’ll realize that the story is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but suffice it to say that these hired guns run into a few problems before they can finish the job, and from there, “Contractors” takes a couple of narrative twists and turns you never would’ve expected. It’s a moral and intellectual wild goose chase that’s way more fascinating than it has any right to be, so you won’t be able to look away as these not-quite-heartless killers grapple with the job they’ve been given.
The second half of The Killers starts with a story called “Everyone Is Waiting for the Man,” and this is hands down the best segment in the film. It’s about a cop and a pair of professional hitmen who unexpectedly meet up at a restaurant as they wait for a notorious killer named Yum Sang-gu, but nobody in the place knows what this guy looks like… or do they?
It’s a super intriguing premise that’s executed nearly to perfection, so when the tension in this restaurant reaches a boiling point, it doesn’t let up until the big reveal. I’m obviously not going to tell you what that reveal is, but I can say that it leads to a blood-soaked conclusion that’s worth the price of admission. This is the closest The Killers gets to horror after “Metamorphosis,” and while it’s still more action thriller than horror, it’s violent enough that genre fans are going to love it.
Last but not least, we have “Diaspora City,” a story about two mysterious men who’ve arrived at a diner to kill a guy who eats there every day at 6 PM sharp. Much like “Metamorphosis,” this segment has a pretty strong noir feel to it, and it also adds a hint of fantasy and what I can only guess is supposed to be comedy.
But unfortunately, that mix didn’t work for me at all. Most notably, the attempts at humor didn’t make me laugh or even smile a single time, and the fantasy element simply feels weird and out of place. It’s almost like “Diaspora City” is going for a surrealist, somewhat Lynchian tone, but it just comes across as scattered and borderline incoherent.
Granted, I was able to follow the general gist of the story, but a lot of the details feel like they don’t belong. To take just one example, a few other odd people enter this diner as well, and they don’t seem to serve any purpose other than making the segment even stranger. It feels like weirdness for weirdness’s sake, and that makes for a disappointingly weak conclusion to this otherwise awesome anthology.
For some people, a single bad segment like that, especially coming at the end of the film, can ruin an anthology, but I disagree. Sure, The Killers has a weak closing story, but it also has three good ones, and that’s a win in my book. So if this movie comes to a theater or VOD platform near you sometime in the future, you should definitely give it a watch. On the whole, it’s a super inventive and super intriguing genre-bending exploration of just how far you can take the hitman trope, and I had an absolute blast seeing the different spins these filmmakers put on that classic character.
The Killers played at the Fantasia International Film Festival on August 3.
