[HanCinema's Film Review] "Confidential Assignment 2: International"

With 6,983,077 admissions in 2022, "Confidential Assignment 2: International" was pretty close to the success of its 2017 prequel which had 7,817,686 admissions. Oddly enough, though, it's one of the more forgettable South Korean movies of recent years. The basic premise is the same as the first film. The handsome North Korean special forces officer Cheol-ryong (played by Hyun Bin) teams up with the more diminuitive and cheerful South Korean cop Jin-tae (played by Yoo Hae-jin) to hunt down a man from his past.

Advertisement

Indeed, this might be part of the problem. "Confidential Assignment 2: International" does its very best to dress up this iteration as unique, inverting the narrative structure so that Cheol-ryong is the last character introduced and his connection to the villain is a plot twist rather than the premise. FBI Agent Jack (played by Daniel Henney) actually opens up the movie for the first ten minutes or so, eventually providing another counterpoint to the North Korean and South Korean leads and even competing as a love interest for Jin-tae's sister-in-law Min-yeong (played by Lim Yoona) who's always aggressively flirting with Cheol-ryong.

Beyond these flourishes, though, this is pretty much the same movie as "Confidential Assignment" and that moment, regrettably, has passed. "Confidential Assignment" may have been a buddy cop flick first and foremost, but it was also a vibe check for an era where the idea of North Koreans and South Koreans working together seemed like something that could happen in the real world rather than just the movies. "Confidential Assignment 2: International" is stuck with this worldbuilding, the premise very optimistically asserting that the United States is actively and sincerely engaging in normalizing relations with North Korea.

Most of the political stuff, metaphorical or otherwise, is otherwise quite downplayed, robbing Cheol-ryong of most of what makes him interesting and forcing our handsome hero to largely rely on Hyun Bin's charms as a leading man. This isn't nothing, and Hyun Bin is decent in his action star role here with some fairly impressive setpieces. The climax where he's pulled up the tower is a standout in intensity.

But it's preceded by a relatively generic gunfight and, for that matter, a fairly generic villain. Given how much "Confidential Assignment" was sold on concept, it's odd that the sequel has so little personality. The petty domestic squabble scenes at Jin-tae's home are the most interesting, with his wife So-yeon (played by Jang Young-nam) providing some of the best lines by just being genuinely furious that her husband's going through all this dangerous nonsense again.

There's plenty of good bits here. They just don't add up to anything. A smarter script would comment on the irony, for example, of Cheol-ryong supposedly living in a police state yet it's Jin-tae who's used to taking advantage of ubiquitous CCTV cameras to hunt down crooks without having to actually chase them. "Confidential Assignment 2: International" isn't a bad movie. It's just not a very impressive one either.

Written by William Schwartz

___________

"Confidential Assignment 2: International" is directed by Lee Seok-hoon, and features Hyun Bin, Yoo Hae-jin, Lim Yoona, Daniel Henney, Jin Sun-kyu, Jang Young-nam. Release date in Korea: 2022/09/07.

Available on DVD from YESASIA

DVD (English Subtitled)