“Yaksha: Ruthless Operations” (야차)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
May 28, 2023

☆☆☆☆
Ji Kang-in (played by Sol Kyung-gu)
Han Ji-hoon (played by Park Hae-soo)
Ozawa Yoshinobu (played by Hiroyuki Ikeuchi)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

A fast-moving action film, “Yaksha: Ruthless Operations” is a spy thriller full of special ops, backstabbing and political intrigue. Last year, I stopped watching about 20 minutes into the movie, because it didn’t hold my interest. But when I went back to it this year, I found it to be thoroughly entertaining. Is this a prestige film? Absolutely not. But it was a fun ride with a (straight-laced) fish-out-of-water concept.

Directed by Na Hyun, “Yaksha” begins with an upstanding prosecutor whose goal is to bring down a corrupt chaebol head. When he fails, he is demoted to a smaller branch where there’s little to do — which some of his new colleagues view as a plus.

But Ji-hoon (Park Hae-soo) is ambitious and wants to return to his previous position. When his boss turns down an offer to monitor an international gang of rogue black ops in Shenyang, China, Ji-hoon takes the assignment, but with the condition that he will return to Seoul if he is successful.

To say that he is a out of place is an understatement. Used to fighting with his verbal skills and not his fists, Ji-hoon is in over his head when he tries to “help” the black ops leader Kang-in (Sol Kyung-gu). Kang-in has a highly skilled team (including GOT7’s Park Jin-young) that has no need for a by-the-book attorney. They, along with the viewers, are surprised when they see Ji-hoon use his judo skills to fight back. But more often than not, he relies on Kang-in to save him. (There’s a rather amusing vignette where Ji-hoon is thisclose to becoming the victim of human organ traffickers. I know that’s not a funny topic, but the raggedy gang who targets him is funny and shows up later in the film as quasi allies.)

In a world where no one is who they seem to be, a third player is introduced: Japanese spy Ozawa Yoshinobu (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi). Is he the mole that Ji-hoon and Kang-in are searching for? Or is Yoshinobu also a rogue op whose main concern isn’t helping his country, but rather helping himself.

The cinematography is on point, separating the different worlds that Ji-hoon moves between, from the stark Seoul offices to the neon-lit shootouts in Shenyang.

There are not-so-subtle references to the animosity that still exists between South Korea and Japan. And at one point, I wondered who the real villain was: Kang-in, Yoshinobu, or the entire Japanese peninsula.

Transliteration: I’m not sure why this film title was transliterated as Yaksha, when the Korean pronunciation is Yakcha.

Release Date: This film was originally planned to release theatrically. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was held for a while before finally being released on Netflix on April 8, 2022. Running time: 125 minutes.

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