Search Out ~ A Sick Way to Use Social Media
“Search Out” is a 2020 Korean movie, categorized as Crime, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Psychological, Thriller, and Police Procedural; and streaming on KOCOWA+.
SUMMARY: Two friends unite with a hacker to find the person responsible for encouraging people to commit suicide. That person is a murderer. It could be more than one.
♦ That’s Too Many Suicides. Aren’t the Police Suspicious?
In “Search Out”, Joon-Hyeok has been diligently searching for a job with no success. Meanwhile, he created a profile for himself on social media and named himself “WishGiver”. Basically, if he can, he will grant your wish. One guy had an easy wish. ‘Can you help me move my stuff?’ He just needed some help moving out of his apartment. If only everyone’s wishes were that easy.
Sung-Min is Joon-Hyeok’s close friend. He is also jobless. Unlike Joon-Hyeok, who is open to job opportunities, Sung-Min just wants one particular job: to become a policeman. But he never passes the civil service exam. He even went to a shaman and the shaman told him to give up because he’ll never pass. That did not discourage him. This is a dream he won’t give up.
One day Sung-Min and Joon-Hyeok are on the rooftop of their apartment building and see a young woman about their age. They recognize her because she lives in the building, but they don’t know her. They exchanged casual greetings, she left them, and presumably went back to her apartment. They hung out for a little bit on the rooftop, talking about all the things they haven’t accomplished.
Joon-Hyeok returned to his room to check his “WishGiver” profile. Someone asked for a wish. He apologized politely and said he could not grant their wish. It turns out the person who asked was the girl they had seen on the rooftop. Maybe about a day later, there are police at the apartment building. It appears that the girl committed suicide.
Sung-Min and Joon-Hyeok are not willing to accept that. They start digging and notice that it looks like a pattern. There are people committing suicide after talking to a person with a specific profile. It looks like this person is a master of psychological manipulation and is enjoying convincing people to commit suicide. But aren’t they committing murder?
Sung-Min and Joon-Hyeok take their findings to the police and get brushed off. The police tell them the case has been closed as a suicide. To add insult to their sincere efforts, the policeman tells them they don’t have a job, so they have a lot of time. But he has real work to do.
Sung-Min and Joon-Hyeok are determined to get justice. They believe there are lots of victims out there, and this psychopath needs to be caught. They find Nu-Ri, who is a computer genius, and she helps them track down a suspect. But he’s not “The One” they’re trying to catch. He does confess that he is working for “someone” because that person is blackmailing him. The trio gathered enough information to give to the police. The police track down the alleged serial murderer who kills by getting others to commit suicide. However, when the police kicked in the door, that person committed suicide.
The police told them they got the killer, SO BACK OFF! Case closed.
Case closed??? NOT!! Sung-Min, Joon-Hyeok, and Nu-Ri don’t believe the serial killer would have taken his own life so quickly. The person the police think they caught could be another victim who the real serial killer manipulated into committing suicide. This could even be a sinister organization involving more than one person. Sung-Min, Joon-Hyeok, and Nu-Ri ignore the police. They are determined to search out the killer (or killers).
Main Characters:
- Joon-Hyeok (played by Kim Sung-Cheol, “Troll Factory”, “The Night Owl”, “The Battle of Jangsari”, “Hellbound 2”, “Death’s Game” )
- Sung-Min (played by Lee Si-Un, “The Player 1 and 2”, “W: Two Worlds Apart”, “Remember: War of the Son”, “Bad Prosecutor”, “Abyss”)
- Nu-Ri (played by Heo Ga-Yoon, Former member of K-pop group “4minute”)
Viewership and Rating:
- IMDb: 4.8 out of 10 stars
- My Drama List: 7.3 out of 10 stars
- Letterboxd: 3 out of 5 stars
My personal rating is the same as Letterboxd.
The movie “Search Out” could be a manual for “How to get away with murder” if computer geeks don’t hunt you down and stop you! The film touches on themes like mental health, privacy, cyber crimes, the misuse of social media, and social media’s dark side.
LINKS OF INTEREST:
Search Out (South Korea, 2019) – Review | AsianMovieWeb
Film Review: Search Out (2020) by Kwak Jung | AsianMoviePulse.com
Korean Movie of the Week ‘Search Out’ | HanCinema
TRAILER/TEASER:
EMK17. “Search Out – Trailer (서치 아웃 예고편).” YouTube, 12 Apr. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJmkjL6t2ro.
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