Officer Black Belt (2024) Review

“Officer Black Belt” Netflix Poster

Director: Kim Joo-hwan
Cast: Kim Woo-bin, Kim Sung-kyun, Lee Hyun-geol, Lee Joong-Ok, Kang Seung-Ho, Yoon Dae-Yul, Park Ji-Yeol, Jin Mi-Sa, Lee Jung-Gwi, Bang Byung-Hyun
Running Time: 105 min.

By Paul Bramhall

The latest in Korea’s steady stream of post-Squid Game Netflix produced movies, Officer Black Belt hit the platform in 2024, offering a look into a rarely seen part of the law enforcement system – the parole officers who monitor ex-offenders once they’re released from prison. The production marks a welcome return to the director’s chair for Kim Joo-hwan, who spent the latter half of the 2010’s establishing himself as the helmer of entertainingly action-centric productions like Midnight Runners and The Divine Fury. After the turmoil of directing the 2023 series Bloodhounds (also made for Netflix), which saw the entire script rewritten when co-star Kim Sae-ron got involved in a drunk driving incident mid post-production, it felt debatable if we’d be seeing Joo-hwan return to filmmaking anytime soon. It’s a relief to see him bounce back so quickly, and as the title indicates, action is again the order of the day.

For his latest Kim Woo-bin (Master, The Con Artists) stars as a directionless slacker whose 2 passions consist of “sports and e-sports”, with his one rule for anything he gets involved in being that it has to be fun. When he’s not flexing his skills in judo, taekwondo, and kendo, he’s usually playing online games with his 3 closest friends, with any time left over spent making deliveries for the fried chicken restaurant his father runs (who he also lives with). I’m not exactly sure what age the character is supposed to be, however considering Woo-bin was 35 at the time of Officer Black Belt’s release, let’s assume it’s someone considerably younger. It’s while making a chicken delivery one day that he comes across an altercation between an ex-convict and a probation officer, and after intervening with his considerable martial arts talents, inadvertently finds himself on the Ministry of Justices radar.

The parole officer he assisted is out for 5 weeks due to the injuries he sustained, and with a workforce that’s already stretched, Woo-bin is approached to join the team temporarily. After some inane attempts at comedy that see him questioning if the role will tick the all-important box of being “fun”, he finds himself partnered with another officer played by Kim Sung-kyun (12.12: The Day, Seoul Vibe), who explains how probation officers always come in 2’s. One will have more of a background in law, and since the ex-convicts they monitor usually have violent histories, one will have a background in martial arts. Thanks to movie magic apparently all Woo-bin had to do was say “yes” to the offer for an immediate start, and soon he’s tracking the movements of the ex-cons he’s assigned to via the ankle bracelets they have to wear 24/7, looking out for any who stray too far from home or fail to recharge the battery.

While the unfortunate tonal shifts in Bloodhounds were largely out of Joo-hwan’s control due to circumstance, the similar problems that are present in Officer Black Belt have less of an easy explanation. The first half of the 105-minute runtime goes for a lightness of tone, consisting of what feels like a never-ending deluge of fist bumps, cheerful smiles, brotherly bonding, and fits of giggles as Woo-bin learns the ropes of the role, even going so far as to get his 3 slacker friends involved as well. Frequently accompanied by a jauntily upbeat soundtrack, the cheerful tone feel feels at odds with the talk of child rapists, murderers, and underage sexual abuse content creators for the dark web.

Woo-bin himself seems to struggle in how to convey the character, with the way the opening scenes outline his requirement for anything he does to be fun (while holding down a food delivery job) initially making me think he had some kind of intellectual impairment. It was only later I realised the portrayal was just intended to reflect someone with a somewhat naïve and overly positive outlook on life, however the character is written over simplistically. The same criticism can be applied to the script as a whole, also written by Joo-hwan, with a number of daytime drama-esque monologues seemingly thrown in at random, often resulting in unintentional comedy. From Sung-kyun explaining how he became a parole officer, to Woo-bin espousing his new purpose in life despite the dangers it holds (complete with constant closeups of his father tearing up the longer the speech goes on), it’s stuff even the Hallmark Channel would balk at.

Eventually there’s a realisation that the plot needs a driver to sustain the latter half of its runtime, so a villain is introduced in the form of the hulking Lee Hyun-geol (Alienoid, Night of the Assassin), a paedophile who’s just been released and is soon back to his old tricks. As a sidenote, Officer Black Belt doesn’t paint a very effective picture of Korea’s prison rehabilitation program, with seemingly everyone who’s released after serving their time looking to re-offend in the fastest way possible. Falling in with other ex-convicts who are now on the outside, Hyun-geol is offered to take part in a scheme distributing child sex videos on the dark web, with his role to be the one in front of the camera. Relishing the opportunity to get back into his old ways, and known to be tricky to catch once he goes off the radar, it’s up to Woo-bin and Sung-kyun to take both him and everyone involved down before any kids come to harm.

Jarring tonal shifts, especially one’s that involve violence, are not totally uncommon in Korean cinema, but in Officer Black Belt it’s still a surprise when, around the halfway point, the good guys find themselves outnumbered by a small army of steel baseball bat wielding lackeys with a taste for blood. The annoyingly upbeat tone that’s dominated the runtime so far is cast aside almost like it was from a different movie altogether, as the good guys proceed to get stabbed, have their necks broken, and get hammered over the head with a baseball bat so hard they’re declared braindead. It’s a sharp right turn, however it also serves as the beginning of an action heavy later half, with a fight scene usually never more than a few minutes away.

Indeed it’s the action that keeps Joo-hwan’s latest watchable, even when some of it is derivative (look out for a moment clearly inspired by Veteran). Hyun-geol makes for an effectively intimidating protagonist, bulked up and willing to do anything he has to in order to avoid being caught, he and Woo-bin get a couple of one-on-ones, and they’re both suitably punishing. I’d go so far to say that if they do eventually go ahead and make a 5^th instalment of The Roundup franchise, Hyun-geol would make a suitably matched opponent for Ma Dong-seok to go up against. A fight that sees Woo-bin take on multiple attackers in the courtyard of a small inn is also a highlight, with the traditional ceramic pots filled with a variety of fermented pastes put to use in a way it’ll make you wonder why they’ve never been used in a fight scene before.

Sadly almost everything outside of the action doesn’t really work, and there’s an inescapable feeling that Officer Black Belt would have been a far better movie if the level of brutality on display in the action was matched by a similar darkness in the overall tone. As it is Woo-bin and Sung-kyun feel like they just stepped out of a kid’s cartoon, becoming buddies almost instantly, with many of the scenarios coming across as equally half baked. Scenes like where Sung-kyun decides to pursue an ex-convict despite being intoxicated feel like an insult to the audience’s intelligence, and when Woo-bin is given a taser with zero training or explanation of when to use it I admit to almost reaching for the stop button.

If there’s any positive to be had from Officer Black Belt, then its Kim Woo-bin’s performance in the action scenes, indicative of the kind of role he’s increasingly leaned towards since making his return in 2022’s Alienoid (which followed a six-year hiatus while he battled nasopharyngeal cancer). Hopefully we’ll see him in more action-centric roles where the quality of the overall production matches those of the action itself, but until then, it feels like this particular Officer Black Belt came straight out of the nearest McDojo.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5/10