To be honest, I was bored. So the question I’m asking myself is, why?

Well, this is a thriller, but there were precious little thrills for most of it. I did think that the idea behind the plot was good—triggering self-destruct mechanisms, light the fuse and then step back. It offers great opportunities for building tension but I don’t think that the overall production capitalised on the potential.

The pace was a constant plod. It needed some speed variations, some light and shade, some better twists and turns and a great deal more tension. This is really a problem across the board from the writer, through the director to the editing suite. The only thing that had any zing was the cinematography, which was beautifully realised.

The characters, including the protagonist, were universally unlikeable. Song Hye Kyo had a stone-face throughout and I was not impressed by her performance. The main problem for me was that the characters were not presented in any depth and for the most part had one mode of operation. For a plot built on the premise of self-destruction, the characters have to be much more carefully realised. Also, with so many antagonists, their inter-relationships did not have enough time to develop to the point where I was engaged. Maybe if Lee Sa Ra and even Son Myeong Oh were omitted that would have made room for more character breadth and detailed interactions.

As it was, I was totally unmoved by any of them and fairly disinterested in what happened to them. The most interesting character for me was Ha Do Young, played by Jung Sung Il, who brought more subtlety to the realisation of his part than any of the others. So when you’ve got nothing much going on in the plot and you don’t feel any interest or attachment to any of the characters, what is there to keep your attention?

One thing that always hacks me off is when the psychology is wrong and it is here. Dong Eun can be triggered into horrendous flashbacks which completely cripple her, but shows no hesitation in confronting and challenging her torturers face to face in isolated places without a tremor or a drop sweat breaking out. This type of dichotomy is simply not credible. Her character relies on words for her safety, but it is emotions that provoke damage and they are much quicker off the mark. So her interactions with the emotion driven antagonists are undermined. It is even more unbelievable because no explanation is offered regarding any of the psychological processes that turned her from fearful victim to controlled aggressor.

What my rating means: 6+ Some aspects of it were OK but it had serious flaws. It will pass the time but you can find something better.