Success always begets copycats. What John Wick started, Netflix straight up pilfered with Kill Boksoon. I never thought that movie was gonna be the basis of a new franchise, but with Squid Game basically over, all those South Koreans the streamer employs needed some work I guess. At least until the 9 sequels to Kpop Demon Hunters that get made.
Mantis is the assassin name Han-ul (Im Si-wan), a rising star in the MK Assassin agency run by Cha Min-kyu (Sul Kyung-gu). After his latest hit, Han-ul goes on vacation, which, um, has left a Kill Boksoon size power void in the assassin game. Mantis’s prestige has him try creating his own agency, run together with his not so secret crush: outcast assassin Jae-yi (Park Gyu-young). The pair have to deal with their old sensei Dok-go (Jo Woo-jin), a retired MK venerable employee, and enigmatic hot-shot Benjamin (Choi Hyun-wook), who doesn’t exactly care for MK’s previously monopoly over the assassin industry.
Mantis the movie is banking on audiences after watching the first John Wick or the First Purge movie, realizing that while the main character is cool, the world might be cooler. A hard but necessary gamble, because Gil Boksoon (Jeon Do-yeon) is not really a part of Mantis’s story. So with the assassin world foundation from the first film, the writers concoct a smart idea: power vacuum! The Boksoon assassin work is more like when Microsoft was deemed a monopoly and forced to split, and all these new companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc came up to challenge them. Han-ul is caught in the middle of all this: he was the golden child of the old ways, beloved by Dok-go. But, those old ways also cast out Jae-yi, whom Han cares for deeply and understands how talented she actually is in ways maybe the geysers don’t. Enter Benjamin, the new guy who doesn’t care about any of this, and just wants the power in whatever way possible. So even though this movie is about contract killers, it functions more like a political thriller a lot of the time, with backend deals and figuring out how to work with other business who are also your rivals, etc. That strange juxtaposition allows director Lee Tae-sung to keep the tone light for a long time: workers “on salary” unhappy with their “activity” in the job, corporate discussions devolving into martial arts action, a B level assassin demoted to C level contract kills, etc.
But despite the Corleone law, Mantis shows it’s really all personal. Han-ul, Jae-yi, and Dok-go have been intertwined in each other’s lives for decades now, and all those years of simmering issues bubble to the surface through this struggle for power, which reveals their true selves. Han-ul, despite his “messy” killings, carries Gil Boksoon’s heart inside of him, uninterested in hurting those he cares about for a chance at personal gain despite his party boy demeanor. Im Si-wan plays him like a bit of an idiot as well, a nice touch where the protagonist doesn’t have to be the smartest person in the room. Jo Woo-jin’s Dok-go oozes traditional in a good way here, completely sure of his beliefs and the code he lives by, making him a powerful unmovable force to get around. But it’s Park Gyu-young’s Jae-yi that will determine if you like this movie or not. Everyone’s having fun but Jae-yi, who’s saddled with the best emotional arc of the movie, and in my opinion the best character, filled with complex motivations that make her a fascinating riddle to solve. The movie is called Mantis for marketing, but if it were up to me, it should be called Jae-yi cause she’s who I’ll remember most.
If Mantis jump starts a new franchise, we’ve got the origin story out of the way now. The ground work is laid for a new fun tale blurring the lines between friendship, power, and love in potentially exciting ways. I hope the world expands too. Netflix, like I said in Kill Boksoon, lets get the Ballering and Baba Yaga to stay at an MK property a night something bad goes down, getting everyone in on the mess. Lionsgate can get all the movie money, and Netflix can get the streaming rights, Win Win Win, the 3rd win for the audience who will go ape sh*t for it!