I think it’s fair to say that a lot of people living in North Korea have a dream of one day defecting from the nation and moving to the much less communist South Korea.

If you had an opportunity to escape poverty and oppression in favor of a much freer Nation very few people would take the option of staying put. So when you look at the 2024 escape film promptly entitled Escape, a setup like this would have the perfect build for a Chase movie where the Final Destination is freedom.

Which begs the question how exactly did a movie like this fail at one of the easiest setups imaginable? Perhaps the answer lies in a very similar problem that American films have, when you spend more time marking check boxes rather than focusing on the story that puts the butts in seats, you end up with a movie that misses the mark in a big way.

Escape is a film about a North Korean army Sergeant named Lim Kyu-nam (Lee Je-hoon) Who has been planning to take an opportunity to defect to South Korea to avoid the harsh rule of the northern side. Doing so is much easier said than done, as anyone who is caught trying to defect from North Korea to South Korea is killed by the government as a traitor to discourage anyone else from following suit.

Understanding that his plan to escape will put him in those close to him in danger, Lim Kyu-nam decides to take one shot in the dead of night to flee before anyone realizes that he is gone, however, an unintended wild boar runs into a landmine set to take out the tractors has forced him to delay his plan until he sees a better opportunity.

Lim attempts to take another North Korean Defector with him but they are subsequently caught and the defector takes the fall for their failed plan. Lim is unintentionally viewed as a hero for catching a detractor but his Newfound favor with the North regime has not changed his heart or his plan. Lim must now save his fellow defector from certain execution by the North Korean government and sees his opportunity to Escape even though his window has become far messier than he had planned.

On paper, Escape has everything going for a satisfying action movie so why does the film fall short? The movie only has a run time of roughly 90 minutes meaning that most of its plot is short and straight to the point. A man on the wrong side of the Border must do whatever he can to get to the other side. Where the film drops the ball it’s with the supporting characters of the film that do nothing but take away focus from the main conflict.

For instance, Koo Kyo-hwan plays the villain who is an old friend of Lim’s who works for the DPRK catching deserters. When the movie is not focused on our hero, the movie takes a detour focusing on a ruthless wrangler who also happens to be a closetly gay pianist who projects his anger because he can’t have a dream relationship with his boyfriend in Russia.

The character choice is particularly odd considering the context of the film and the target audience for the movie which would be South Koreans. If you’re trying to make them emotionally bond with your villain you certainly chose the wrong conflict to win them over.

The film also does a brief detour to focus on a small group of armed North Korean female nomads who fight to be separated from the North Korean regime. While their introduction is an interesting turn in the plot their development ultimately goes nowhere as they only appear in the movie for a brief period. When considering that these numerous character interruptions happen frequently for a 90-minute movie, you realize that the film is thin on the actual plot. It’s as if the filmmakers had an idea but didn’t know how to get from point A and point B in a time frame that would justify a feature-length film.

The film places our protagonist in numerous situations and conveniences where he is just about to fulfill his plan before something improbable happens. This formula repeats itself for the entire runtime. With the stakes presented in the movie, the tone does not present audiences with the feeling of a man who’s going to war against an entire country.

Korean films such as The Man Gone North do a superior job at leveling the stakes for our protagonist without even seeing the threat of gunfire. Escape makes the mistake of thinking that tell don’t show is the proper creative process rather than letting the situation speak for itself.

Escape is a movie that hurts itself By losing focus of what truly matters in a story.

2.5/5

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