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Review: Blind (블라인드) (2011)
A simple but thrilling story. Worth a watch for those who like mystery thrillers.
Spoilers.
Story
Soo-ah was an ex-police cadet. As a trainee, she got into a traffic accident with her orphanage brother, resulting in his death and the loss of her eyesight. Three years later, she tried to be readmitted to the police academy but was denied, on the grounds that she had snuck off while on school time and had illegally handcuffed her brother, resulting in him being trapped in the falling car. Upset at the rejecting, Soo-ah was in a bad mood, and refused a ride back when she went to visit the orphanage.
At the bus stop, Soo-ah got into a deluxe taxi as it was raining. She noted that the previous passenger must have been a medical worker due to the smell of sterilizers. The driver wore a watch on his right hand. He offered a coffee to Soo-ah and insisted she drink it. She refused, and the scuffle resulted in the driver losing control and ramming into someone. He took a look at the body and put it in his trunk. He told Soo-ah it was just a dog, but Soo-ah felt it was a person. The argument led to the man abandoning Soo-ah at the side of the road.
Soo-ah reported the hit and run but Inspector Cho didn’t think much of it, until Soo-ah showed that she had good senses and could tell that it was a person who’d been hit. The police put out a call for witnesses. Gi-sub came in as a witness and insisted that the car was not a cab but a foreign car. Soo-ah and Inspector Cho dismissed his account and he stormed off. However, Soo-ah later realized that Gi-sub was telling the truth, that the car she was in was not a typical sedan taxi but a hatchback. Inspector Cho and Soo-ah tried to call Gi-sub but he was in the process of being stalked and assaulted by the culprit.
Soo-ah received some threatening calls from the criminal. She went to the hospital to warn Gi-sub, who brushed her off. However, he spotted her being followed onto the train by the culprit. He called Soo-ah, telling her to put her phone on video call so that he could be her eyes. He spotted the culprit and told Soo-ah to run away from him. The criminal chased her to an elevator. Soo-ah’s dog dragged him out and was killed by him, but Soo-ah was safe.
The police analyzed the sedative that was used on Soo-ah and determined it was likely used by certain type of doctor at private clinics. Inspector Cho went hunting for the culprit and ran into him. A fight ensued and Inspector Cho was killed. He then went after Soo-ah and Gi-sub, using the detective’s phone to find out that they were at the orphanage.
At the same time, the police had gotten a warrant to investigate Doctor Choi Myung-jun. At his home, they found a woman locked up, as well as another dead woman, which was enough evidence to arrest him. At the orphanage, Choi tried to kill Gi-sub and Soo-ah. Soo-ah tried to start a fire, which forced them all out. Using the help of her motion sensor, Soo-ah bashed Choi over the head as he approached, and the police came just in time to arrest him.
After a year, Soo-ah was shown graduating from the police academy. Her orphanage mother and Gi-sub came to celebrate with her. Gi-sub insisted that he would also go to the police academy after finishing his military service.
It was a very simple story and yet I enjoyed it. New information was brought up at intervals to keep the pacing even and to keep me guessing.
Production
The production was fairly simple, and there were only a handful of characters. The acting was fine.
Characters
Min Soo-ah
Soo-ah was our main character. As a police cadet, she’d caused her brother’s death. She had to learn to live with the loss of sight, and after three years, I think she was at a point where she felt the courage to resume her life. However, her conversation with the police academy gave her a shock.
Apparently the real reason she was pulled out of the police academy was because she’d broken academy rules by going off-site, and she’d inappropriately cuffed her brother which led to her death. That being said, given the end of the movie in which Soo-ah returned to the academy, perhaps that was just the official reason, and the unofficial reason was that the police wouldn’t know what to do with a blind police officer.
Anyway, Soo-ah was very shaken by the conversation and she lost her cool, unable to cross the road or cook as she usually did. When she visited the orphanage, her orphanage mom asked her to attend a dance performance held by her brothers’ friends, but Soo-ah was upset by it and refused to attend. That was how she ended up waiting for a cab on her own.
At this point, the story pivoted more towards the crime. We saw that Soo-ah was acute in her senses due to her loss of sight. She had a good sense of smell, touch, and hearing. That was why she was so convinced that the driver had not hit a dog and had hit a person, but took advantage of her loss of sight to try to convince her otherwise. Soo-ah using her acute senses, convinced Inspector Cho to help her and that was how they started their partnership.
We saw that even now, Soo-ah retained a pride and stubbornness that she had as a younger person. When Gi-sub insisted the car wasn’t a cab, Soo-ah shut it down completely. But later, when she realized she was sitting in a hatchback, she realized she had to retract her words and that GI-sub was right.
After the threatening phone call, Soo-ah feared for her life and Gi-sub’s, because Gi-sub reminded her of her brother Dong-hyun so much. She tried to help him and he brushed her off. But later when he saw that she was in danger, he helped her out. That was the start of their friendship in which they looked out for each other. At the orphanage, Gi-sub found out about her past as a police cadet and thought she was pretty cool. And Soo-ah was glad to know that Gi-sub felt a bit inspired to become a police officer himself.
When Choi came to the orphanage to kill Soo-ah and Gi-sub, Soo-ah had to use her wits to get him, but also used some deception so that Choi would be caught off-guard. That was how she incapacitated him in time for the cops to come.
I guess the grand statement on Soo-ah was that even as a blind person, she was very smart and resourceful. But the difference between now and then was that she’d learned from her past. She couldn’t be so reckless, not if she wanted to protect other people.
Cho Hee-bong
Inspector Cho was a typical and average cop. He wasn’t particularly respected at his job, which was why he was told to take Soo-ah’s testimony when she first came in to report the hit and run. But he was easily won over by her smarts and decided to help her. He would do a lot of the leg work as he had the access (as a cop) and also he raised fewer eyebrows as an average dude in certain circles (like cab drivers) compared to Soo-ah. At the beginning, he would talk to cabbies and ask Soo-ah if they were the person she’d talked to, but they hadn’t gotten far that way.
They got more information from the sedative that was used on Soo-ah, and that was what set Cho off to investigate various clinics. He bumped into Choi and got into a fight, which resulted in his death. Choi then used his phone to get to Soo-ah and Gi-sub.
To be honest I’m a bit surprised that Cho didn’t have as big of a role as I’d expected. Usually the cops have some kind of sad backstory or family life that are supposed to trigger empathy in us. But I guess in this case, it’s Soo-ah with that backstory.
Kwon Gi-sub
Gi-sub was a delivery driver, a bit of a punk. When he came in to give his witness testimony for the car, Cho didn’t take him seriously, and Soo-ah was adamant that the car was a cab. They accused him of wanting the reward money and he stormed off in anger. Choi caught Gi-sub vandalizing the police call for witnesses and followed him, realizing that he had seen his car.
Gi-sub was assaulted by he didn’t die. Nonetheless, he was done with the whole case and didn’t care to listen to Soo-ah when she warned him about the killer. But he caught sight of her being followed by the same man who’d followed him and he helped her escape by being her eyes as she showed him where she was through video call. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to save Seul-ki, Soo-ah’s dog.
Gi-sub and Soo-ah were told to stick together so he followed her to the orphanage, where he got to know a bit about Soo-ah’s backstory and that Soo-ah cared for him because he reminded her of Dong-hyun. When Choi came to the orphanage, Gi-sub tried to fight him but was incapacitated. Soo-ah dragged him to safety and they eventually were pushed out, where Soo-ah then hit him with a brick as the cops came.
The movie ended with Gi-sub coming to Soo-ah’s graduation ceremony, saying that he would come to the academy after he finished his military service.
Choi Myung-jun
Choi was a serial murderer. I’m guessing he originally picked up Soo-ah, thinking that she was an easy target because she was alone. However, she didn’t want to drink the coffee which caused problems. But he ended up running over another woman who became his new victim and he abandoned Soo-ah. Choi wanted to get rid of witnesses, so that was why he wanted to scare, stalk, and kill Soo-ah and Gi-sub.
In his day life, Choi was an obgyn who worked at a private clinic. When Cho went to his office, it said that they didn’t deliver children anymore at their clinic. So I’m guessing the clinic only did abortions and other check up work. Anyway, it seemed Choi was a raging misogynist and he considered women scum. That was his motive behind killing him. So how did he become an obgyn? Was it because he derived pleasure in abortions? We will never know, because Choi wasn’t explored too deeply.
Overall
A decent, short thriller movie.
Spoilers.
Story
Soo-ah was an ex-police cadet. As a trainee, she got into a traffic accident with her orphanage brother, resulting in his death and the loss of her eyesight. Three years later, she tried to be readmitted to the police academy but was denied, on the grounds that she had snuck off while on school time and had illegally handcuffed her brother, resulting in him being trapped in the falling car. Upset at the rejecting, Soo-ah was in a bad mood, and refused a ride back when she went to visit the orphanage.
At the bus stop, Soo-ah got into a deluxe taxi as it was raining. She noted that the previous passenger must have been a medical worker due to the smell of sterilizers. The driver wore a watch on his right hand. He offered a coffee to Soo-ah and insisted she drink it. She refused, and the scuffle resulted in the driver losing control and ramming into someone. He took a look at the body and put it in his trunk. He told Soo-ah it was just a dog, but Soo-ah felt it was a person. The argument led to the man abandoning Soo-ah at the side of the road.
Soo-ah reported the hit and run but Inspector Cho didn’t think much of it, until Soo-ah showed that she had good senses and could tell that it was a person who’d been hit. The police put out a call for witnesses. Gi-sub came in as a witness and insisted that the car was not a cab but a foreign car. Soo-ah and Inspector Cho dismissed his account and he stormed off. However, Soo-ah later realized that Gi-sub was telling the truth, that the car she was in was not a typical sedan taxi but a hatchback. Inspector Cho and Soo-ah tried to call Gi-sub but he was in the process of being stalked and assaulted by the culprit.
Soo-ah received some threatening calls from the criminal. She went to the hospital to warn Gi-sub, who brushed her off. However, he spotted her being followed onto the train by the culprit. He called Soo-ah, telling her to put her phone on video call so that he could be her eyes. He spotted the culprit and told Soo-ah to run away from him. The criminal chased her to an elevator. Soo-ah’s dog dragged him out and was killed by him, but Soo-ah was safe.
The police analyzed the sedative that was used on Soo-ah and determined it was likely used by certain type of doctor at private clinics. Inspector Cho went hunting for the culprit and ran into him. A fight ensued and Inspector Cho was killed. He then went after Soo-ah and Gi-sub, using the detective’s phone to find out that they were at the orphanage.
At the same time, the police had gotten a warrant to investigate Doctor Choi Myung-jun. At his home, they found a woman locked up, as well as another dead woman, which was enough evidence to arrest him. At the orphanage, Choi tried to kill Gi-sub and Soo-ah. Soo-ah tried to start a fire, which forced them all out. Using the help of her motion sensor, Soo-ah bashed Choi over the head as he approached, and the police came just in time to arrest him.
After a year, Soo-ah was shown graduating from the police academy. Her orphanage mother and Gi-sub came to celebrate with her. Gi-sub insisted that he would also go to the police academy after finishing his military service.
It was a very simple story and yet I enjoyed it. New information was brought up at intervals to keep the pacing even and to keep me guessing.
Production
The production was fairly simple, and there were only a handful of characters. The acting was fine.
Characters
Min Soo-ah
Soo-ah was our main character. As a police cadet, she’d caused her brother’s death. She had to learn to live with the loss of sight, and after three years, I think she was at a point where she felt the courage to resume her life. However, her conversation with the police academy gave her a shock.
Apparently the real reason she was pulled out of the police academy was because she’d broken academy rules by going off-site, and she’d inappropriately cuffed her brother which led to her death. That being said, given the end of the movie in which Soo-ah returned to the academy, perhaps that was just the official reason, and the unofficial reason was that the police wouldn’t know what to do with a blind police officer.
Anyway, Soo-ah was very shaken by the conversation and she lost her cool, unable to cross the road or cook as she usually did. When she visited the orphanage, her orphanage mom asked her to attend a dance performance held by her brothers’ friends, but Soo-ah was upset by it and refused to attend. That was how she ended up waiting for a cab on her own.
At this point, the story pivoted more towards the crime. We saw that Soo-ah was acute in her senses due to her loss of sight. She had a good sense of smell, touch, and hearing. That was why she was so convinced that the driver had not hit a dog and had hit a person, but took advantage of her loss of sight to try to convince her otherwise. Soo-ah using her acute senses, convinced Inspector Cho to help her and that was how they started their partnership.
We saw that even now, Soo-ah retained a pride and stubbornness that she had as a younger person. When Gi-sub insisted the car wasn’t a cab, Soo-ah shut it down completely. But later, when she realized she was sitting in a hatchback, she realized she had to retract her words and that GI-sub was right.
After the threatening phone call, Soo-ah feared for her life and Gi-sub’s, because Gi-sub reminded her of her brother Dong-hyun so much. She tried to help him and he brushed her off. But later when he saw that she was in danger, he helped her out. That was the start of their friendship in which they looked out for each other. At the orphanage, Gi-sub found out about her past as a police cadet and thought she was pretty cool. And Soo-ah was glad to know that Gi-sub felt a bit inspired to become a police officer himself.
When Choi came to the orphanage to kill Soo-ah and Gi-sub, Soo-ah had to use her wits to get him, but also used some deception so that Choi would be caught off-guard. That was how she incapacitated him in time for the cops to come.
I guess the grand statement on Soo-ah was that even as a blind person, she was very smart and resourceful. But the difference between now and then was that she’d learned from her past. She couldn’t be so reckless, not if she wanted to protect other people.
Cho Hee-bong
Inspector Cho was a typical and average cop. He wasn’t particularly respected at his job, which was why he was told to take Soo-ah’s testimony when she first came in to report the hit and run. But he was easily won over by her smarts and decided to help her. He would do a lot of the leg work as he had the access (as a cop) and also he raised fewer eyebrows as an average dude in certain circles (like cab drivers) compared to Soo-ah. At the beginning, he would talk to cabbies and ask Soo-ah if they were the person she’d talked to, but they hadn’t gotten far that way.
They got more information from the sedative that was used on Soo-ah, and that was what set Cho off to investigate various clinics. He bumped into Choi and got into a fight, which resulted in his death. Choi then used his phone to get to Soo-ah and Gi-sub.
To be honest I’m a bit surprised that Cho didn’t have as big of a role as I’d expected. Usually the cops have some kind of sad backstory or family life that are supposed to trigger empathy in us. But I guess in this case, it’s Soo-ah with that backstory.
Kwon Gi-sub
Gi-sub was a delivery driver, a bit of a punk. When he came in to give his witness testimony for the car, Cho didn’t take him seriously, and Soo-ah was adamant that the car was a cab. They accused him of wanting the reward money and he stormed off in anger. Choi caught Gi-sub vandalizing the police call for witnesses and followed him, realizing that he had seen his car.
Gi-sub was assaulted by he didn’t die. Nonetheless, he was done with the whole case and didn’t care to listen to Soo-ah when she warned him about the killer. But he caught sight of her being followed by the same man who’d followed him and he helped her escape by being her eyes as she showed him where she was through video call. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to save Seul-ki, Soo-ah’s dog.
Gi-sub and Soo-ah were told to stick together so he followed her to the orphanage, where he got to know a bit about Soo-ah’s backstory and that Soo-ah cared for him because he reminded her of Dong-hyun. When Choi came to the orphanage, Gi-sub tried to fight him but was incapacitated. Soo-ah dragged him to safety and they eventually were pushed out, where Soo-ah then hit him with a brick as the cops came.
The movie ended with Gi-sub coming to Soo-ah’s graduation ceremony, saying that he would come to the academy after he finished his military service.
Choi Myung-jun
Choi was a serial murderer. I’m guessing he originally picked up Soo-ah, thinking that she was an easy target because she was alone. However, she didn’t want to drink the coffee which caused problems. But he ended up running over another woman who became his new victim and he abandoned Soo-ah. Choi wanted to get rid of witnesses, so that was why he wanted to scare, stalk, and kill Soo-ah and Gi-sub.
In his day life, Choi was an obgyn who worked at a private clinic. When Cho went to his office, it said that they didn’t deliver children anymore at their clinic. So I’m guessing the clinic only did abortions and other check up work. Anyway, it seemed Choi was a raging misogynist and he considered women scum. That was his motive behind killing him. So how did he become an obgyn? Was it because he derived pleasure in abortions? We will never know, because Choi wasn’t explored too deeply.
Overall
A decent, short thriller movie.