'Kill Boksoon' explores juggling motherhood in assassin action thriller

• Published date: 28 February 2023
• Publication title: The Korea Times

The upcoming Netflix movie "Kill Boksoon" revolves around a legendary female assassin, but the action-packed thriller is a stylish, witty drama of a mother's desperate efforts to find work-life balance between contract killing and parenting.

Cannes best actress winner Jeon Do-yeon stars as the titular lead character, Gil Boksoon, a top assassin who leads a double life as a mother to a teenage daughter, Jae-young (Kim Si-a), going through a turbulent adolescence.

Boksoon has never missed a target and is the highest-paid contract killer in MK Ent., an assassination company established by Cha Min-kyu (Seol Kyung-gu). She knows how to do an impeccable job: whether it's killing a person, a group of gangs or staging a suicide with whatever is available.

At home, she is an ordinary mother who tries but often fails to connect with her daughter, who confessed to being a lesbian and having trouble at her elite private school.

For Boksoon, parenting is harder than her highly risky job, saying, "It is simple to kill a person, compared with raising a child."

Feeling contradictory emotions around motherhood, she refuses to complete her assigned mission and becomes the prime target of fellow assassins. She ends up in a final battle in which the last person standing survives.

Jeon, who is known for her roles as emotionally distraught women in acclaimed movies "Secret Sunshine"...