A jaded diplomat finds himself caught between competing factions both at home and abroad while trying to rescue a kidnapped colleague in Kim Seong-hun’s action dramedy, Ransomed (비공식작전, Bigongsigjagjeon). Inspired by true events, the film ironically echoes the recent Chinese hit Home Coming which was itself at least incredibly indebted to Escape from Mogadishu in praising the efforts of a civil servant who braved a war zone to rescue a stranded colleague but received little support from his conflicted government.
During the time the film takes place, Korea is caught in a moment of transition technically still under the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan but with the first democratic elections already scheduled and the 1988 Olympics in the offing. Diplomat Oh Jae-seok (Lim Hyung-guk) is kidnapped in during the civil war in Beirut in 1986 and believed dead after efforts to retrieve him fail. Nearly two years later, jaded Foreign Office Middle East specialist Lee Min-jun (Ha Jung-woo) picks up a call and hears a message in morse code including a special diplomatic password and the claim the that it comes from Jae-seok who is alive and requesting rescue. The problem is that both the Foreign Office and the KCIA are on the fence about taking action, each wanting the glory of bringing Jae-seok home but fearful of being professionally embarrassed if it turns out that the call is a hoax and they pay a ransom for a man who’s already dead.
Min-jun finds himself caught between the two while essentially forced to set up a secret covert operation through former US CIA officer Carter (Burn Gorman) and a wealthy Swiss businessman with connections in Lebanon. The irony is that both he and Pan-su (Ju Ji-hoon), a Korean taxi driver he inexplicably runs into in Beirut, only want to go to the US, Min-jun desperate for a more prestigious positing to advance his diplomatic career while Pan-su, technically undocumented, seeks a better life in a more stable environment. As such, Min-jun’s motivations for rescuing Jae-seok are only partly a sense of responsibility as a fellow diplomat and the man who took the call that Jae-sook was alive, hoping to prove himself to his superiors only agreeing to the job on the promise of a transfer to a major US city resentful of having been passed over for a position in London in favour of an elite graduate of Seoul University.
The irony is that once in Beirut he’s faced with a further series of kidnap threats, another random militia hot on Min-jun’s trail hoping to capture at least one Korean in the hope of a major payout though Min-jun’s problem is that the government only agrees to send more money after each step has been completed endangering the efficacy of the rescue mission while leaving him at the mercy of the militia leader the government has secretly and perhaps questionably agreed to pay to broker the negotiations to secure Jae-seok’s release and passage out of the country. Caught between competing militias in Beirut, Min-jun is also a victim of the push and pull between the waning influence of the KCIA and the Foreign Office with his fate decided largely by political infighting while in the end it’s his colleagues who eventually take a stand each chipping in three months’ salary to fund his rescue out of a sense of solidarity in the reflection that their job is only really possible given their government’s assurance of protection when they undertake dangerous work overseas for the national good.
As expected, Min-jun soon rediscovers his sense of duty as does shady taxi driver Pan-su though more thanks to the shaming of his Lebanese girlfriend who points out that it’s not a good look to run off with millions of dollars intended to save to save a man’s life. Despite the constant precarity of the situation, what arises is an awkward brotherhood between the two men brokered by an uneasy trust and genuine fellow feeling as they try to rescue Jae-seok while evading the militia trying to kidnap them along with the wider civil war. Undercutting the seriousness of the situation with a healthy dose of irony and black humour, Kim lends his otherwise grim tale of citizenry held hostage by a bureaucracy in flux a degree of positivity if only in proving the power of the individual over a dysfunctional system.
International trailer (English subtitles)
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