Believer 2 Review: Directed by Baek Jong-yul aka BAIK, and written by Kim Hee-jin, the South Korean sequel 독전 2 to the 2018 film Believer is a violently action-packed crime movie starring Cho Jin-woong as Jo Won-ho, a detective hung up on discovering the elusive “Mr Lee” and Cha Seung-won as Brian Lee, an industrial company’s director who secretly runs an illegal drug testing lab and wishes to take over as the only grand presence worthy enough to claim the “Mr Lee” identity.
Alongside them, helming other lead roles, Han Hyo-joo joins in the mess as “Big Knife”, Mr Lee’s right hand and the only person privy to his identity, with Oh Seung-hoon replacing Ryu Jun-yeol from the first movie as Seo Young-rak aka “Rak”. Kim Dong-young and Lee Joo-young also return to play their roles as the deaf and mute drug-cooking siblings, who’ve formed an out-of-the-ordinary family with Rak.
Watch the Believer 2 Trailer
Releasing on Netflix on November 17, 2023, following its premiere at the Busan International Film Festival 2023 (BIFF 2023) in October, the Korean film has a runtime of 116 minutes. Rated ‘A’, it resumes following Detective Jo search for the truth as he hopes to turn Asia’s biggest drug organisation inside out and get a hold of its slippery leader calling all the shots behind-the-scenes.
Believer 2 Korean Movie Review Contains No Spoilers
Believer 2 Review
Beginning with a messy rundown of the previous film that wasn’t originally distributed by Netflix, but released theatrically instead, the sequel kindly offers us a quick recap of the monumental happenings of the film that started it all, and aptly established the myth that was Mr Lee.
If you keep your love for flashy A action flicks aside, halfway into the movie, you may end up asking yourself as to what exactly new and original has unfolded in the movie. Looking back at the one hour spent watching it, you’ll realise that nothing except histrionic blazing fires and shootouts, have consumed the duration, well except the expeditious whirlwind that was the initial recap of the well-constructed and spunky first film of the series.
Much like how some sources have listed Believer 2 on Netflix as a “midquel” instead of a sequel, the movie’s writing seems to have the intentionality of this move because it merely fills in the hours with breathless action sequences that are incoherently stitched together through the disconnected location and time jumps that keep wildly swaying back and forth.
Moreover, these shifts are announced through jarring interventions like black screens and ostentatiously edgy text fonts that take you aback just as you’re getting used to the action on screen. Even though the ending of the film seems firmly conclusive, it’s this insufficient journey all the way around that almost makes you feel that the title is announcing there may be more to come later, resulting in the lack of consequential exchanges throughout the movie; or maybe that’s just a thought that I compelled myself to believe in to compensate for the deprivation of courageous profundity.
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Han Hyo-joo’s unkempt chain-smoking savage portrayal of the Big Knife and her bloodthirsty dedication to beheading people, though stereotypically brings alive her deplorable character, is still a standout in this lacking outing, especially when put parallel to her last small screen avatar of the doting mother, Lee Mi-hyun in Moving K-drama. However, here, she’s only moved by her all-consuming and immutable devotion to Mr Lee, highlighting what isn’t even needed to be spelled out for us to know – her trauma-bearing baggage, which yet again doesn’t fully make it to the table for more discussion.
Even with all that said, the movie does find a sense of gravitas in the very few intensely grave conversations that, also in a way, uphold the significance of the fathomless silence between Cho Jin-woong and Oh Seung-hoon’s characters. Young-rak’s character and his dysfunctional, broken and adventitious found-family with the drug-making siblings, and his reluctantly shaped unspoken bond with Won-ho make for a solemn sub-plot that are only primarily given more screen time when it’s too late.
In the end, after such a long wait, the revelation of the elusive Mr Lee’s identity is such an anticlimactic blow, and by that, I mean the execution of it is. The info-bomb is just casually dropped into the narrative like an artlessly unaffecting piece of information that never mattered. Ultimately, Jin-woong’s Jo Won-ho, Seung-hoon’s Rak and Cha Seung-won’s Brian’s absurdly rough dynamic makes for an invigorating mess worth looking into, but Believer 2 stays too occupied executing its profusion of action scenes and doesn’t dare to build up the emotion.
Believer 2 Netflix Film: Final Thoughts
Believer 2 offers a terse and jarring watching experience, as, again it doesn’t explore many of it characters; but in the end, finds meaningful dynamics conveyed through silence in very few scenes. BAIK doesn’t hold back while keeping his camera focussed on the insanely hostile bloodshed throughout, and while that genre commands the screen, there are times when you wish for it to step aside too so that you can have a better look at the characters. There’s no denying that the sequel lays down an intense experience, and the actors especially play their parts well, even if some have to excessively lean into pulling off their characters as archetypal representatives of abominable characteristics.
Ps. watch out for the mid-credits scene. There’s no actual continuity to the story, but as the headline mentions, just tune in for kicks, it will make for a savoury and lighthearted mood-breaker that’ll pull some chuckles out of you, especially after sitting through all those headshot blows.
Believer 2 movie is now streaming on Netflix.