A Store for Killers: Episode 1 (First Impressions)
by missvictrix
A Store for Killers out-performed my expectations with its first episode. As a substitute of simply being high-powered and violent, the drama is definitely equal components introspection and quiet suspense, too, making it way more attention-grabbing and considerate than it might need given itself credit score for.
Editor’s word: That is an Episode 1 overview solely. For a spot to speak about the whole drama, go to the Drama Hangout.
EPISODE 1
Our drama opens in a rural setting the place a random home is beneath a critical siege. Along with armed males approaching within the close by area, there’s a scaryass sniper (Website positioning Hyun-woo) in a scaryass minivan that’s obtained his sights proper on the lounge. Inside mentioned front room is a college-aged lady in a tracksuit. We come to be taught later that she’s JUNG JI-AHN (Kim Hye-joon). The sniper has Ji-ahn pinned so she will be able to’t transfer from the place she’s hiding behind the fridge.
As we get the lay of the land, we see that there are extra individuals in the home, additionally bloodied and hiding, and we’ll get to know them later — and the way the scene unfolded. For now, what we get is the primary of many flashbacks of our heroine with a reminiscence of her uncle, JUNG JIN-MAN (Lee Dong-wook). The 2 of them are sitting on the sofa watching a film with some fancy bullet-dodging and Jin-man offers her somewhat lesson in notion and blind spots. Again in the lounge, she places it to good use, discovering a blind spot within the sniper’s view and leaping (actually) to the opposite aspect of the room. Ji-ahn flips the sofa and beneath is a stealthily saved sniper rifle and recent rounds of her personal able to go.
It’s fairly the wild opening scene — made a lot stronger with the in medias res strategy — but it surely’s highly effective as a result of the strain is suspended so lengthy, and the scene performs out so fastidiously. Certainly, this would be the drama’s complete directorial strategy, it appears, and that’s what made me like it. A Store for Killers might have gone both means, however the cautious and creative course made the primary episode a story deal with. For all of the suspenseful and thriller-y components, it’s at all times in regards to the story. And that story is slightly a tragic one.
After the opening scene, we leap again in time just a few days and meet Ji-ahn in a police station. She’s simply beat up a creepy dude after watching him comply with a girl into the restroom, so we be taught just a few issues about her from that alone. When she calls her uncle as her guardian to signal her out, one other cop truly solutions the telephone and tells her: don’t be alarmed however your uncle is useless.
The center part of our episode follows Ji-ahn as she rides out to the agricultural place her uncle lived, identifies his physique on the morgue, after which plans and attends the funeral. Ji-ahn does all this whereas completely trying useless inside, however we will’t inform at first whether or not she’s simply in shock, or doesn’t care about his dying in any respect. Every of those scenes is absolutely well-crafted, giving us particulars we have to know (the “MURTHEHELP” tattoo on her uncle’s arm, the truth that his neck wound has been dominated a suicide), but in addition constructing stress from the little that’s mentioned — and due to the characters she’s interacting with. Everybody round appears to be giving her a suspicious secret look, and it’s unclear how a lot of a scheme Ji-ahn’s simply discovered herself in the midst of, however boy does it make me suspicious of each character that breathes.
Just a few extra of Ji-ahn’s flashbacks assist us perceive her story a bit extra — one specifically that stands out is a 12 months prior when Jin-man readied Ji-ahn’s dorm room for her, replete with a bulletproof cupboard she might cover in. You already know, simply in case. Amongst different unusual issues, he hammers into her head the significance of numbers, and rattles off her college ID to her (this may certainly be essential later, proper?). We catch a glimpse of their rapport by means of these flashbacks, too, and it looks as if there was a largely unstated and completely begrudging camaraderie between them. She tells him issues like, “You’ve got the face of a felony,” but it surely looks as if they may be two peas in a pod.
Just a few days go with the funeral proceedings and cremation — and a bunch of extremely suss ajusshis coming and going from each — and now Ji-ahn returns alone to her uncle’s home. Exterior of a decent-seeming taxi driver/pal who’s been mourning Jin-man along with her, the one individual that’s been vaguely useful is BAE JUNG-MIN (Park Ji-bin).
We see in a fast flashcut that the 2 have been associates again in grade college when Ji-ahn moved in along with her uncle, so Ji-ahn is fast to belief him. Jung-min tells her he knew Jin-man fairly effectively and was serving to together with his on-line store for agricultural hoses (of all of the issues, this provides such a dose of dry humor!).
When Ji-ahn is alone in the home, although, her facade begins to crack. From telling Jung-min she’s disgusted with the thought that her uncle killed himself, to remembering him in one other flashback second after which bursting into tears in the lounge — if we weren’t already rooting for Ji-ahn, that is the scene that places us on her aspect.
By chance, Jung-min sees Ji-ahn crying after which sticks round to maintain her firm… and that’s when the craziness begins. The suspense has been constructing thus far, as a result of we now acknowledge the home inside and Ji-ahn’s tracksuit from the drama’s opening scene. So when the plot kicks in, regardless that we all know the place we’re going, it’s extra suspenseful than ever.
Jung-min discovered an previous cellphone within the rest room, and so they joke that it was her uncle’s burner telephone. However when a textual content is available in in regards to the billions of received which have simply been paid, the 2 go to analyze the “hose” web site. Jung-min’s diploma in pc engineering shortly pays off and he realizes the web site is a entrance for a store on the darkish net referred to as MURTHEHELP. It’s filled with firearms and different weapons on the market.
Ji-ahn and Jung-min are nonetheless reeling from the invention when a chat message pops up within the window, with a buyer asking for his or her merchandise. When Ji-ahn responds that they’ll refund the cash, issues shortly escalate to: Jin-man is useless and also you’re subsequent. Simply then the doorbell rings, and it’s a creepy girl in purple lipstick that we additionally acknowledge from the opening scene, and she or he’s hellbent on getting inside. It’s right here that we shut the episode.
A Store for Killers did so many issues proper with this premiere episode, however the adept directing is absolutely what made it what it’s. The narrative construction and cautious pacing permit all of the totally different components to shine, and as you watch you may see how this screenplay was tailored from a novel. Fortunately, the script strikes with the identical articulation you’ll anticipate from a piece that has a gradual and intertwining narrative.
As for the performances to this point, Kim Hye-joon at all times brings a lot depth to her roles, and I obtained what I anticipated from her. Extra of a enjoyable shock was a derelict, scarred, and unlikable-yet-likable Lee Dong-wook. The truth that he’s the top-billed actor and technically already useless earlier than the drama begins makes the storytelling all of the extra essential right here. Ostensibly, all of his scenes might be in flashback, and if the scenes we obtained in Episode 1 are any indication, these flashbacks would be the lifeblood of the plot, and unlock the story as we go.
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