[HanCinema's Film Review] "Mission Possible: Kidnapping Granny K" + DVD Giveaway

For various morbid reasons, Do-beom (played by Kang Sung-jin), Geun-yeong (played by Yoo Hae-jin) and Jong-man (played by Yoo Gun) have been unable to make anything of themselves in life. They have to resort to petty crime in the meager hopes of recovering from their misfortunes. It is from here that they arbitrarily decide to kidnap famed restaurant personality Soon-boon (played by Na Moon-hee) who has her own problems in life, mainly centering around ungrateful children. "Mission Possible: Kidnapping Granny K" is the story of their unlikely team-up.

Advertisement

"Mission Possible: Kidnapping Granny K" has among the most compact premises of recent memory. It's pretty easy to guess what the overall narrative arc is going to be. Even as the big kidnapping scene stretches its slapstick out so long as to threaten taking over the entire movie, it's hard to escape how generally pathetic the lead characters are. Poor Do-beom, trying as best as he can to provide for his wife. Poor Geun-yeong, fully immersed in his own depressing failure. And poor Jong-man, the young guy who really needs to find some smarter friends.

But Soon-boon is the main obvious source of sympathy, having managed to achieve success in life and providing a solid foundation for her family only to realize she never gave them a solid source of emotional support. Oddly enough non-relatives have benefited well enough from camaraderie with Soon-boon. So too do the wannabe kidnappers learn from her that the world is not entirely cruel. They just needed someone to believe in them.

This is an obvious metaphor for the left-behinds in modern South Korean culture, a country that knows great materialist success yet suffers greatly from psychological issues in pursuit of this success. The final heist is a suitably odd solution to this problem, involving as it does vast wealth redistribution into a more useful direction. Yet even then, the three central idiots are left as the butt of a big joke, given only matronly encouragement to do something more rewarding than petty scams.

...That's an awful lot of narrative critique for a movie that's about dumb men hurting themselves in ways that look physically comical. "Mission Possible: Kidnapping Granny K" features among its staple gags exaggerated reflexes, plans so complicated they have to be written in Chinese, and what can best be described as some excessive womanhandling of the police. Yet even jokes about the sex lives of old people come off as oddly wholesome, since all anyone seems to want here is a decent life.

The emotional center, in short, is surprisingly strong. Coupled with good continuity and easy to identify character archetypes, "Mission Possible: Kidnapping Granny K" that's a lot more enjoyable than it probably should be simply because it's very easy to understand. Consider the romantic subplot which pops up. Neither of these people are what we could reasonably call attractive, but guess what? They're happy together, so what else should matter? Money is only the vehicle by which happiness should be arrived at- it is not, and should not be, happiness incarnate after all.

Review by William Schwartz

"Mission Possible: Kidnapping Granny K" is directed by Kim Sang-jin and features Na Moon-hee, Kang Sung-jin, Yoo Hae-jin, Yoo Gun and Park Sang-myun.

 

Available on DVD from YESASIA

DVD (En Sub)

 

Mission Possible: Kidnapping Granny K DVD