After spending a good few- or a lot of- minutes twisting and turning in bed, struggling to achieve my goal of being healthy and an early bird, I gave up and got up. I went to lay down on the couch with the remote in my hand, scrolling through a list of movies and shows to watch on Netflix as I waited for the food I ordered to arrive.
As you may know by now, I’m a huge fan of K-Drama and the K-Drama film titled Unlocked caught my attention for two reasons: One is that the K-Drama stars Im Si-wan, one of my favorite actors, especially after seeing his performance as Yoon Jong-woo in the K-Drama titled Hell is Other People (or Stranger from Hell), which is an adaption of a Webtoon by the same name. The second reason is the interesting and unique storyline. It sounded so interesting and unique to me that I started watching it even before my food arrived, as evident by this TikTok I made about it:
@furiouslunchbag I bought sandwixhes and watxhed UNLOCKED K-Drama movie at 1:00 AM 😂😍🥰 #kdrama #kdramas #egypt #egyptian #unlockedkdrama
Unlocked is a Thriller/Mystery Korean film, directed by Kim Tae-joon. It is about a woman named Lee Na-mi (Chun Woo-Hee) who loses her smart phone and it is found by a man named Oh Joon-yeong (Im Si-wan) who unfortunately and coincidentally happens to be a crazy stalking serial killer.
The film tackles how we are heavily consumed by smart phones and the dangers of smartphones. Although this is not the first time this type of topic has been tackled in media entertainment, I believe this is the first film to have such a unique approach. This film does not exaggerate the reality of how horrifying it is (although it could be argued that we can’t know the reality of it unless we experience it ourselves).
With Lee Na-mi’s obliviousness, moving forward with her life like nothing’s happening, I felt paranoid that it could potentially be happening to me right this second. The actress, Chun Woo-Hee, portrays Lee Na-mi very well. Viewers feel frustrated by her obliviousness to the reality she’s living. I found myself desperately waiting for her to finally grow at least a bit suspicious.
As frustrating as her obliviousness is, it’s very realistic. How do we know that we aren’t as oblivious as she was to someone stalking us through our smart phones right now? In my case, for example, how do I know that someone isn’t stalking me through my smart phone as I’m writing this blog post? It’s easy to sit through the film and judge Lee Na-mi’s actions- so much so that the serial killer is the last person she suspects- but it is important to take a step back and imagine ourselves in her shoes.
Although I really enjoyed watching Unlocked and I easily place it in my list of favorite Korean movies and shows, I felt that the film started off very slow and suddenly picked up out of nowhere when it was nearing to the end. It went from 0-100, but not exactly in a cool way. The film never showed Lee Na-mi having raising suspicions of Oh Joon-yeong, and instead jumped straight into acting on her suspicions. It left me as a viewer thinking, “Oh, I guess she is suspicious!”
Overall, Unlocked was an amazing watch and had unique take on the dangers of smartphones. I would give the film a rating of 9/10. Although I did have a bit of criticism about the pacing and ineffectively going from 0-100, the positives outweigh the negatives and it was an incredible film to watch nonetheless. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I highly recommend it to you, especially if you are a fellow K-Drama addict.
