Yaksha: Ruthless Operations — a taut, fast-paced spy thriller

Yasha: Ruthless Operations (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated TV-14, for violence

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

We need to pay more attention to South Korean cinema; their espionage thrillers are much better than anything cranked out by Hollywood lately.

 

Han Ji-hoon (Park Hae-soo, back to camera) gets nothing but scornful dismissal from the
black ops team he has just met: from left, Jae-gyu (Song Jae-lim), Hui-won (Lee El),
Manager Hong (Yang Dong-keun), Jeong-dae (Park Jim-young) and Ji Gang-in
(Sul Kyung-gu)

Director Na Hyun’s Yaksha — with the silly subtitle “Ruthless Operations” added for its U.S. debut — is an excellent example. Calling this sleek, fast-paced romp “stylized” is an understatement; Hyun, editor Kim Sang-beom and their production team blend twisty spycraft, double- and triple-crosses with pulsating action set-pieces that make excellent use of visually dynamic locations.

It’s also fascinating to see an entirely different cultural approach to espionage issues: points of view wholly unlike the usual American take on the Far East.

 

The premise from scripters Ahn Sang-hoon and Na Hyun is irresistible: An idealistic, by-the-book civilian suddenly gets tossed among a ruthless black-ops team accustomed to street justice in pursuit of the greater good. Our naïve protagonist is horrified by the extremes exercised by his new companions, just as they’re thoroughly disgusted by his namby-pamby faith in a broken system.

 

Meanwhile, all concerned are trying to ferret out a mole who’s been compromising Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) operations.

 

Following a brief and violent prologue — the significance of which becomes clear only later — we meet Han Ji-hoon (Park Hae-soo), a buttoned-down prosecutor with Seoul’s Central District Prosecutor’s Office. He’s in the final stages of indicting Lee Chan-young (Choi Won-young), the obviously corrupt chairman of the Sangin Group; the case seems air-tight… 

 

…until a procedural error is revealed.

 

Chairman Lee walks free; Ji-hoon is humiliated. (Choi milks this moment with maximum condescending smarm.)

 

Desperate to regain his professional stature, Ji-hoon accepts an unusual assignment from Yeom Jeong-won (Jin Kyung), director of NIS foreign intelligence activities. She’s troubled by reports coming from a black ops team headed by Ji Gang-in (Sul Kyung-gu) in Shenyang, China; the intel feels … wrong. Fabricated. Too benign to be true.

 

Believing this is just the sort of task for which his skills are best suited, Ji-hoon heads to Shenyang and liaises with Section Manager Hong (Yang Dong-keun). The latter encourages this young upstart to forget the assignment, enjoy the sights for awhile, and then file a neutral report. Incensed, Ji-hoon demands to accompany Gang-in — who prefers the nickname Yaksha — and his team on their next mission.