Commitment (2013) ~ First Korean Movie for K-Drama Newbies

“Commitment” (2013) was the first Korean drama film I watched and it changed everything! It is a spy thriller with awesome action sequences from beginning to end, and it is intense! After watching this movie I started surfing the Korean Wave. It’s a movie gem.

♦ A High School Kid Should Just Be a High School Kid

Whoever said “Life is cruel and unfair” must have served as a North Korean spy.

Ri Myung-Hoon is the son of a North Korean secret agent. But the government betrayed his father and branded his father as a traitor. Not only that but they threw him and his sister in jail because they were the children of a traitor.

The father was not a traitor. In fact, he had completed his mission and served the country as a loyal patriot. Unfortunately, the father did not know that once an agent finishes a mission, their life is finished as well. Assassins were sent out to kill him. He never made it back home, and his family was put in prison.

The officials in this wicked corrupt government tell Ri Myung-Hoon that if he wants to erase the shame of his father and save his little sister, then he has to work for the government. Work for the government doing what? What do you think? You are an able-bodied young man and could easily pass as a high school student. You would make a perfect soldier or better yet, a perfect spy.

His parents are gone but his little sister has nobody to take care of her. So he agrees to do the same work that his father did; i.e. become a spy for North Korea. They “promised” that once he finished the mission he and his sister would be free to live a normal life.

Uh-huh. It’s too bad he did not know they told his father the same thing. If they had been truthful they would have said “live a normal afterlife”. Ri Myung-Hoon did not realize that like so many spies who had gone before him, he was usable and disposable.

So the government trains him and he is so good at his job that he becomes the best secret agent on the planet!! He’s driven to be the best because he wants so much to save his sister. He was sent to South Korea, enrolled as a high school student, and when he wasn’t pretending to be a student, he was carrying out dangerous and deadly assignments as a spy.

The wicked government officials figured that once his mission was completed they were going to screw him over the same way they did his father and kill him. But it turns out, that unlike his father, Ri Myung-Hoon wasn’t so easy to kill. The NK government may have deceived his father and killed him; but he was going to make sure that he saved his sister.

Spies can not and should not have friends. Even though it’s against orders, he befriends Lee Hye-In, a girl in school. Coincidentally she has the same name as his little sister. She is the only bright spot in his life.

Main Characters:

• Ri Myung-Hoon (played by T.O.P, real name: Choi Seung-Hyun, “Squid Game S2”)
• Lee Hye-In (played by Han Ye-Ri, “The Nokdu Flower”)

Where to Watch

Viewership and Rating:

• IMDb: 6.6 out of 10 stars
• My Drama List: 7.9 out of 10 stars
• Apple TV: 6.3 out of 10 stars
• Letterboxd: 3 out of 5 stars
• Rotten Tomatoes: 7.49 out of 10 stars
• Amazon customers rated this film: 4.6 out of 5 stars
• Viki viewers rated this film 9.5 out of 10 stars

My personal rating is the same as the Viki viewers.

I’m pretty sure my high rating is spot on because reviews for this Korean movie showed up in well-known American publications like The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, and The Los Angeles Times. This was when the Korean Wave had just begun to ebb and flow. Netflix did not start streaming Korean content until 2016. These days the K-Wave is crashing!

T.O.P won numerous awards before he even starred in this movie. Interestingly, he won the Korean Wave Popularity Award at the 2010 (47th) Daejong Film Awards. It’s a music award. But in 2010 and 2011, he won Best New Actor at the 2010 (31st) Blue Dragon Film Awards and the 2011 (47th) BaekSang Arts Awards.

He won these awards for his role in “71: Into the Fire” (alternate title: “Into the Gunfire”) which is based on the true story of 71 students who fight hundreds of North Korean soldiers in front of a middle school on June 25, 1950 during the Korean War. (Source: AsianWiki)

“71: Into the Fire” is on my watch list because it’s not available yet on any of the streaming platform that I can access. But trust me, the way T.O.P performed in “Commitment” was just as award-worthy.

LINKS OF INTEREST:

• [Movie Review] Commitment: Starring T.O.P – MY RARA POP
• Review: ‘Commitment’ a spy drama with a romantic heart | Los Angeles Times
• “Commitment” by Park Hong-soo Review: To Survive He Must Kill | PeakD
• [Movie Review] Big Bang TOP’s ‘Commitment’ is an Intriguing Character Study Against the Backdrop of North-South Tensions in Korea | KpopStarz

TRAILER/TEASER:

映画カルチュア FilmIsNow Japan. “Commitment (동창생) Official Trailer (English Subtitles) 2013.” YouTube Video. YouTube, October 9, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBWFrW98oCc.‌