The Suspect

A former North Korean spy starts working for South Korea as a driver for an important company CEO. When the CEO becomes the target of an assassination, the spy is accused of the murder, triggering an intense manhunt.

The plot of this film is, given the genre, relatively ordinary. We're talking about a man who is wrongly accused of a murder and must clear his name while also trying to uncover some other secret matters related to the murder victim. It's a race against time, and no one can be trusted, along with other clichés typical of similar films. The Suspect delivers better than most Western (read: American) films in the same genre. Despite being a bit too long, it maintains a good pace throughout and features some very well-executed action sequences.

What makes The Suspect stand out, both internationally and within the Korean film landscape, is the way it implicitly and explicitly tries to comment on the relationship between North and South.

FFS Archive 2014

Director

This is Won Shin-yeon's (b. 1969) fifth feature film, and the second one he has not written the script for himself. The Suspect was one of the biggest box office hits in South Korea in 2013 and is well worth a watch if you enjoy action.

This film is part of