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“Style over substance” is a cliché if ever there was one, and contrary to popular belief, critics – the decent ones, anyway – like to avoid those where possible. But never has the term been more relevant than it is to Ballerina (2023), a South Korean action-thriller on Netflix with a plot so thin and simple as to be virtually non-existent.
Filmmaking, like anything else, goes through trends, which is a polite way of saying that it emulates the last thing that was very unexpectedly successful. In the case of action movies, what’s in vogue now is the kind of brawny, brainless experience popularised by the likes of John Wick and The Raid. Character development and nuance are traded in for balletic choreography and stylized visuals – not to mention wince-inducing brutality.
These aren’t the thinking person’s movies, but they are the aesthete’s in a sense, those for whom a little strobe lighting and a lot of blood will go a long way. I’m very much in this demographic, for what that’s worth, and Ballerina very much caters to it. But it also pushes the boundaries for quite how far these things can go without suffering from diminishing returns.
After all, there’s only so thin something can get before it disappears entirely.
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The plot of Ballerina, such as there is one, revolves around Ok-ju (Jeon Jong-seo), who is not the titular dancer but a former close-protection expert who has turned to a life of quiet self-loathing and the occasional thwarting of convenience store robberies (this is the movie laying its cards on the table right out of the gate).
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Ok-ju has one friend in the world, Min-hee (Park Yu-rim), who is a ballerina, and also makes cakes. Flashbacks showing how these two met are unmistakably framed as meet-cutes, but the movie’s also a little unclear about whether there’s just a platonic connection or a romantic one here. Either way, I didn’t think about it too much as Min-hee is quickly killed off to kick-start the revenge plot.
Min-jee’s tragic suicide is the result of her being forced into slavery by a brutal human-trafficking ring, blackmailed by her rapist, Choi Pro (Kim Ji-hoon), into a situation that death seemed like the only viable escape from. All she leaves behind is a little note for Ok-ju imploring her to seek revenge on her behalf, and, really, that’s all an action movie protagonist needs.
So, Ok-ju gets to work. With impressively little fanfare, she discovers what was going on with Min-hee, takes aim at Choi Pro, and, in short order, at everyone else in his general vicinity, often with extreme prejudice. I wish there was more to discuss in this regard, but that genuinely is the long and short of it.
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And it isn’t enough. On paper, you’d think it is, and the point is to punctuate the narrative tracks with physical storytelling that is appropriately nasty and impressive. But there’s a reason that the John Wick franchise devoted an increasing amount of time to building a rather abstract fantasy assassin world in the background – because without that context, the films would be tedious.
Ballerina completely lacks the eccentricity and imagination of those films. The audience doesn’t particularly care about Ok-ju and Min-hee since the script never supplies them with any particular reason to, and the backdrop of a seedy sex ring and perverted villains – at one point Choi Pro wears a gimp mask, for crying out loud – just feels like a lazy, cheap way to get us on-side with Ok-ju’s revenge mission.
Brutal action is a saving grace
The action does count for a lot, though. Most of it is entirely practical, and a good chunk of it is surprisingly brutal, which gives a kineticism and tactility to Ballerina that it certainly benefits from. But you’ve also seen it all before, from the gun-fu to the aesthetic, and after a while the absence of anything to care much about wears thin.
For these reasons, Ballerina doesn’t have the makings of a cult classic or the kind of sleeper hit that’ll change the way action directors approach genre filmmaking from here. It’s entirely derivative, and completely lacks an emotional, human contour, or even some interesting worldbuilding, that would get it over the line.
There’s certainly an exciting action movie here, make no mistake about that, but it’ll pass by in a flash and there’s little reason to think about it once it’s over.
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Ballerina (2023) Review – Brawny And Brainless