Hard Hit

The main character in "Hard Hit" is taking the kids to school one morning - a boy and a girl - when he gets a restricted call. The unknown caller informs him that a bomb has been placed under his seat. It will explode if he leaves the car.

This is all you need for 90+ minutes of frantic action, I guess, and the unknown caller soon supplies a demand and an explosive argument for making our hero do just like Toto. That is hold the line.

The reliable supporting actor Jo Woo-jin tackles his first lead role playing an ordinary bank employee who gets pinned behind the wheel. His rapport with Lee Jae-in, playing his daughter, provides a human element in all the frenzy. He's understandably desperate. I mean, I would be too, if I had to handle at least two phone calls simultaneously while at the same time calm the kids down and actually drive the car.

It's a saddening reminder of COVID-era realities, by the way, to see beaches and intercity highways in Busan all but deserted with no CGI enhancements needed.

The movie is a remake of an excellent Spanish thriller, "El Desconocido" (2015), starring Luis Tosar in one of his best roles. The Korean version follows the original unusually closely, to such an extent that all they've really done is to translate it to the Korean idiom. And both movies surely owe something to "Speed" (1994) and Dennis Hopper's scheme as the bad guy.

Anyway. The movie keeps the pace up, and it never feels as if the entire plot actually takes place inside or in the immediate vicinity of the hero's car. The unknown caller is online most of the time (those familiar to K-movies and K-dramas will undoubtedly recognize the voice right away), and the Koreans do love their phones and gadgets.

The flow may get a little lost with subtitles, I imagine, but this movie worked for me, built around its ingenious plot. So fasten the seatbelt. Or then again, thinking of the unfortunate hero, maybe better not.

PS: The Korean title refers to a "Restricted Call" as opposed to the meaningless English title, and in everday slang, it's also known as a "black call". Shouldn't miss a chance to show off...

This is a remake of a 2015 Spanish film, which will also soon be remade in Hollywood with Liam Neeson at the helm. The premise is exciting -- combining elements of Keanu Reeves in "Speed" and Colin Farrell in "Phone Booth". Hostages, Bombs, Car Chases... It's all fast-paced and well produced. My one quibble was the final outcome. I wish they had been a little braver in the final ten minutes.

Few big flaws. They dont know whats police procedures and processes. Lousily made. Not worth pay to watch at all. The conclusion is really nonsense after the multiple nonsenses. They should put more effort instead of producing such a low quality story movie.

This is the third version I watched ... and I heard there will be a Hollywood version as well. So there we go. I can't imagine it getting better than the spanish original. But I would say that the other versions do have certain things that work - not just locally. The police thing was better handled in the German version, the family and father interaction is a bit better in this Korean version.

But as you can imagine and as I already sort of stated, stick with the original movie if you can - and if you either speak spanish or do not have issues with subtitles. All in all this is decent, but I've seen better thrillers from Korea. Technically you cannot fault it at all - and the actors do their best too.

The filming quality and views were amazing, the music was also okay-ish at adding suspense however there was something I really did not like about the plot.

At the very start, MC gets a call from the bomber telling him his car is bombed then gets another call from his colleague (that has his wife on the car) & realizes that he's also received a similar call and their situation is about the same so he drives all the way to him.

The wife however is adamant that the bomb is fictional and just cannot control herself on not getting off, practically has an urge to jump off the car by any possible means knowing there could be a possibility of death to... go to work.

Anyway the wife gets off, effectively blowing : herself, the car & her poor husband (I applauded) the first thing MC does however is driving off at full speed then later realizes his son is hurt so he wants to drive to the ER but ends up in a remote area where the plots begins.

There are two things that are massive plot-hole ignored so the movie could happen that bothered me :

-The first is when he didn't switch the audio from earpiece to the car's after he's already told his kids what is happening.

-The second is he had to flee the crime scene at full speed so he could avoid policemen, firemen & medics after the bombing.

The movie happening in a narrow space limiting the movie set & budget will have to heavily rely on the plot, not to spoil but I watched until the end & I just found it was alright.

The wife blowing off everything to go to work honestly was the highlight for me haha.