It's a satisfying action flick with a strong male protagonist beating up villains who make themselves extra vile. It's your standard macho flick where everything revolves around the single strong man, and no one else really matters except as a means to move him closer to resolving the conflict as only he can. They do a good job of making the bad guys appear intimidating, even if logically it's not clear how they're so effective with so few resources and manpower.
There's no cheesy love interest forced in, but in its place are subtle seemingly nationalist vibes that seem to throw shade on immigration from China and Chinese-Koreans (e.g. Snide one-liners at villains that they don't pay taxes or cries from exasperated side-characters that even if they stand up for themselves to repel the immigrant thugs the criminals will just get new IDs and be let back into the country to terrorize them). To this Western viewer these subtle elements caught my attention, but I have no idea the local context in which they'd be received within Korea.
Ultimately, it's all immaterial to the plot, which is fairly straightforward. Bad guys are bad, good guy is tough, tough guy takes out bad guys.
There's no cheesy love interest forced in, but in its place are subtle seemingly nationalist vibes that seem to throw shade on immigration from China and Chinese-Koreans (e.g. Snide one-liners at villains that they don't pay taxes or cries from exasperated side-characters that even if they stand up for themselves to repel the immigrant thugs the criminals will just get new IDs and be let back into the country to terrorize them). To this Western viewer these subtle elements caught my attention, but I have no idea the local context in which they'd be received within Korea.
Ultimately, it's all immaterial to the plot, which is fairly straightforward. Bad guys are bad, good guy is tough, tough guy takes out bad guys.