What would an uncle do to protect his niece? In Disney+ K-Drama ‘A Shop for Killers’, we see Lee Dong-Wook (Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, Tale of the Nine Tailed), a mysterious and paranoid uncle who is forced to raise his only living relative, his niece played by Kim Hye-Jun (Connect, Kingdom) after his family’s deaths.
Set in modern-day Korea, the show starts with the main character Jeong Ji-An (Kim Hye-Jun) being targeted by unidentified men after her uncle, Jeong Jin-Man’s mysterious death. The show jumps between the past and the present, showing Ji-An entering her uncle’s home as a child and as a college student after her uncle’s death.
We meet Bae Jeong-min (Park Ji-bin, previously in Boys Over Flowers, The Great Queen Seondeok), Ji-An’s tech savvy childhood friend who was working with Jin-Man before his death. The duo are shot at while they are at Jin-Man’s house but survives as Ji-An draws on seemingly random lessons her uncle taught her before his apparent suicide. With Jeong-Min’s help, Ji-An finds out that her uncle ran an online agricultural goods shop which is actually a front of a lethal weapons shop. They learn that in the shop, customers are separated into different codes (Red, Purple, Yellow) depending on what they do (Killers, Spies, Clean-up crew). Jin-Man and Ji-An the only two with unique codes; Code Green.
In Lee Dong-Wook’s previous shows like Tale of the Nine Tailed, we saw him in handsome and fantasy-like roles, but here, we see exhausted and haggard Jin-Man, just doing his best to protect Ji-An and survive. Although Jin-Man is stoic and reserved, Lee Dong-Wook did a great job conveying his character’s love for his niece through his expressions.
For Ji-An’s character, one unforgettable scene was definitely when young Ji-An was being chased by a killer. The long chase, the defenseless, crying child finally hiding with a corpse in the morgue’s cold locker as a last resort was definitely heart wrenching.
As the drama progresses, we see Ji-An being hunted by the world’s deadliest assassins and the past is slowly revealed in fragments. Unsure on who to trust, Ji-An has to count on her gut and her uncle’s previous lessons to survive.
‘A Shop for Killers’ delivers on the realistic action and gritty emotional scenes, as well as the stellar acting especially by the main leads.
Check out the action-thriller, ‘A Shop for Killers’, available for streaming on Disney+!
Article: Angeline @ KAvenyou
