V.I.P. (브이아이피)

Kim Gwang Il (Lee Jong Suk) is the son of a high-ranking North Korean official. He’s also a psychopath with well over twenty kills under his belt all over the world. He’s captured in South Korea but it’s impossible to punish him: he has information the American’s want. That doesn’t stop the South Korean police force or a North Korean ex-officer from chasing after him. The body pile grows but can he be captured?

Well, first of all V.I.P. is loaded full with top name actors: Lee Jong Suk, Jang Dong Gun, Kim Myung Min, Peter Stormare etc. But out of all these actors who impressed me the most was, of course, Lee Jong Suk. Now, if I had to give an angel a face Lee Jong Suk would be one very strong option. Here, however, he was a completely cold, emotionless psychopath who lived to spill blood and torture. It was great to see him in a completely different kind of role, not always in a romantic comedy.

An angel of death

The movie’s plot was divided into parts but still it took me half of the movie to finally realize who was on whose side and what their goal was. Countless people appeared out of nowhere and without a proper introduction. There were simply so many players on this chess board that the first half needs to be spent introducing them all.

When we got to the second half of the movie, the last hour, I was speechless. All the introductions and many conversations were suddenly given importance and a reason for them. Why? Because Lee Jong Suk’s character finally got some well deserved screen time.

V.I.P. focuses on the procedures to capture and actually punish criminals, when international politics come into play. This made Lee Jong Suk from the main lead I thought he was into a sideline watcher (for the first half), but he still managed to steal the show. He was different from the clichéd detectives and tired government workers.

In the end, I would have enjoyed this movie even more if I had known before hand that it would focus more on the politics other than expecting a psychopath thriller were the whole point of the movie would be to capture him. V.I.P. is a sickly genius play on the politics of today where the ones with information are the ones with power and when they use it wisely, they can get away with everything.