Pickpocket Kay (Bae Du-ma) falls in love with subway cop Jay (Kim Seok-hun), but unfortunately
he is a man driven to bring down Bishop, a top terrorist who had killed his
wife & caused Jay's suspension from Special Forces. So, when there is a big
opening of a subway station involving many top-brass politicians including the
mayor, Jay knows this is where Bishop will strike next, & he is even
assigned to security of the station, but is unfortunately sidetracked by some
Special Forces cops, not liking Jay to meddle in their affairs. Only thanks to
Kay's vigilance, who tells him the location of the terrorists via cellphone,
does Jay keep track of Bishop & his terrorists - who of course end up in
the same train as the mayor & company, including a camera team, & but
so do Jay & Kay.
Soon the terrorists take the whole train hostage, demanding to speak to the
ex-prime-minister - who Bishop intends to kill out of revenge, as he was once
one of the special agents the politician ordered killed when they became a
burden. & to prove his seriousness about the whole business, Bishop sets
the ex-prime-minister an ultimatum at the end of which he shoots the first
victim - the mayor.
Meanwhile Jay does everything to stop the terrorists, which proves to be a
good thing as he is the only one who can actually shoot them while the
SWAT-teams that get into a firefight with them inexplicably can't even harm
them. Furthermore, Jay has the ability to jump on & off racing trains
remain unharmed (again that's inexplicable), & at one point he even
follows the train on foot & manages to catch up (!) - & please
remember, Jay is not supposed to be a superhuman being of any kind.
In the end, Jay has singlehandedly fought down all the terrorists but Bishop,
& by disconnencting waggons saved most of the hostages, & now he faces
Bishop - & for some stupid reason, they resort to swordfighting (!), with
Jay finally disposing of the villain. But the danger is not over yet, as the
train is now racing towards a powerplant, & would the 2 of them crash the
whole city would blow up. Of course, the train cannot be stopped, as this would
trigger some explosives, rigged to go off if the train slows down below a
certain speed (now where did I hear this one before ?).
The ex-prime-minister wants to immediately sacrifice all the passengers of
the train, as they might have some evidence against him (concerning his killing
of the special agents), but the train controllers - among them Sangho, whose
wife is on the train too to not leave out any cliché - decide on a mutiny
against the crooked politician, & finally their boss, Kwon, figures out a
way to disconnect rest of the waggons from the railcar, which would mean only
one man would have to sacrifice himself to drive the railcar far enough away
from the other waggons - which has to be done manually, apparently -, &
it's a no-prize draw for guessing who this is going to be.
Yes it's Jay, who has just found a new love & reason in life in Kay, but
whose heroism goes above all ...
In the first half, this movie tries to opt for a n original character
constellation, which on second look does seem pretty artsy & half assed
though, in the second half though, this is completely abandoned as the movie
leaves no stupid cliché untouched, essentially telling in way too great detail
the story of a superhuman avenger who will stop at nothing to set a wrong right
- which is pretty mcuh uninteresting all by itself. But the narration does not
help the movie much as it just rushes from one action climax to the next,
totally forgetting the story along the way, so the action-sequences soon seem
as interchangeable as their outcome is predictable. The action itself works
only on a pure technical level, too - it's well filmed but lack any soul or
individuality, making one feel he has seen everything before - & in a
better movie, too.
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