The prison guard is making an inventory of scars for Ha Soo-young (Jeon Do-yeon) as she’s being released. It’s what one might expect for a former police officer getting out after two years. Outside, she’s met by a cheerful young woman named Jeong Yoon-sun (Lim Ji-yeon). Problem? Soo-young doesn’t know who she is.
And that’s just the beginning of her problems. She was expecting to be greeted by someone lugging a bag full of cash and the deed to a nice apartment. It was to be her compensation for taking the rap for a corruption scandal that her fellow officer (and lover) Lim Seok-yong (Lee Jung-jae) and his higher-ups were involved in. No cash, and the apartment is occupied by someone else. And Andy himself? Well, to paraphrase a line from The Godfather: “Oh, Andy … won’t see him no more.”
After two years of abuse in prison, Soo-young is seriously displeased. What does she want? Revenge. But what does she want even more? What she was promised. She wants her cash. She wants her apartment. And she sets out to get them.
Her first step is to track down a guy who was also present when Seok-yong coerced her into taking the deal. That’s Andy (Ji Chang-wook), the wannabe heir-apparent of a crime family that is actually headed by his mother, Grace (Jeon Hye-jin). Grace is the calm, calculating one who wants to make sure all the family’s dirty dealings with the cops aren’t exposed. Andy is the hot-headed, craven loose cannon who is too officious to do what it would take to make Soo-young happy and go away quietly.
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So much to appreciate. First and foremost are the performances by the female leads.
Jeon Do-yeon projects an air of steely determination throughout, both when negotiating with hoodlums but especially when fighting them off. Unlike many Korean action flicks where the hero unbelievably fights off a dozen attackers, here the action is tense because we see Jeon genuinely in danger. But she’s a master at the police baton and she has the guts to take as much as she gives back. She’s ferocious and relentless.
Her opposite number is the always perky and defenseless Lim Ji-yeon. She’s alternately amusing and frustrating as she vacillates between helping Jeon with the info she needs to unpeel the layers of corruption, and heading for the hills to save herself.
Ji Chang-wook is also deliciously despicable as the young hoodlum who believes he knows better than his mother and manages to make every possible mistake through a toxic combination of stupidity and hubris. And give credit to Jeon Hye-jin as mother Grace, whose presence in her early scenes is cooly intimidating, someone you obviously don’t want to mess with if you can avoid it.
The themes of police corruption, with the thugs calling the shots, and betrayal leading to revenge, are all familiar. But Revolver manages to rise a bit above the cliches with its compelling performances, grounded fight scenes, and a hard-boiled heroine who won’t take no for an answer.