“Unlocked” (스마트폰을 떨어뜨렸을 뿐인데)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
May 10, 2023

☆☆☆☆
Lee Na-mi (played by Chun Woo-hee)
Oh Jun-yeong (played by Im Si-wan)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

“Unlocked” came out a few months after the Korean series “Somebody.” Both revolve around cunning, good-looking serial killers who utilize technology to hack their way into their victims’ lives. In this 2022 film, the cell phone is the device of choice.

After a night out drinking with her friends, Na-mi (Chun Woo-hee) falls asleep on the bus ride home. Still drunk, she hastily gathers her belongings and leaves behind her phone. Jun-yeong (Im Si-wan) picks it up and takes it home. When one of her friends calls asking for the phone to be returned, Jun-yeong utilizes a prerecorded woman’s voice to mask his own identity. Of course Na-mi will feel safe retrieving the phone from another woman.

The pickup place is a dingy “phone repair shop” that looks like the kind of place where customers enter, but never leave. At least not alive. But our spunky protagonist is so happy to get her phone back that it doesn’t occur to her that Jun-yeong might be a scammer. When he asks for her password to fix something on her phone, she readily tells him. And that’s all he needs to infect her phone with malware so that he can monitor her daily doings.

With easy access to her conversations, contacts, photos, and bank account, he is able to take over her life. There is no rhyme or reason for his actions, other than to make her miserable. Using her own information as ammunition, he makes inflammatory social media posts (as her) that get her fired and alienates her friends so that she has no one to turn to.

Except her father, who earns Jun-yeong’s wrath when he warns his daughter that the man is off and she should stay away from him.

The first time I saw Im Si-wan act, it was in “Moon that Embraces the Sun.” He played a character who was so handsome and angelic that his first entrance included what may as well have been a special effects halo.

With this film and “Emergency Declaration” — another 2022 film where he played the maniacal villain — Im has proven himself as a talented actor who can convincingly portray either a hero and a villain.

Release date: The 117-minute film premiered on February 17, 2023 on Netflix.

SPOILER ALERT: He killed the real Jun-yeong — the son of a police officer — and took over his identity. His goal? To have everyone believe that the cop’s son was a serial killer. There was no reason for this, other than his enjoying the ability to control other people’s lives.

At one point, two police officers could’ve checked into Jun-yeong’s identity. But when the latter threatened to sue them for harassment, they just…let him go. WHY???

When he realizes that Na-mi’s father doesn’t trust him, he kidnaps and tortures him. By this point, Na-mi knows she’s being monitored. She writes a brief message on the back of a business card that tells the police officers that she will check in with them verbally every day. When Jun-yeong forces her to send a text telling them she’s fine, they realize she’s in danger and go to rescue her.

© 2023 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved