For a quick few seconds, the opening scene of director Park Hee-kon’s suspense-thriller Target can give you a different impression of the movie.
When the sequence opens to a series of interconnected shots of people going about their business in the city, with graphic notifications of mobile messages and transactions that pop out of the screen, it’s almost impossible not to entertain images of a stylish, young lead character rushing to get to work on time, where a horrible boss is out to make his/her/their life difficult but he/she/they manages to see it through.
The opening scene has a bright and cheery effect—which, I think, is clever because it brings a stark contrast to how things are going to turn out. It allows the audience to ease themselves on the seat, strap in and be propelled into an intense ride.
Shin Hae-sun is Soo-hyun, a young ambitious woman who is out to prove herself to her boss. She’s just moved into a new home and is in the middle of a slightly problematic construction project. It doesn’t help that her washing machine suddenly broke. With most of her money spent on moving, she does the most logical thing to do: buy online.
The deal she found was… to die for. It looked good and was inexpensive. The seller is looking to dispose of it immediately—she needed one badly, so it was a match made in heaven.
… but things would soon end in hell for Soo-hyun.
After discovering that her purchase was a lemon, a furious Soo-hyun did what most disgruntled buyers do: leave scathing reviews about the seller.
She unleashed the keyboard warrior within.
What Soo-hyun thought was revenge for getting duped turns out to be the start of a series of terrifying events for her.
The way the events unfolded was effective in getting the audience scared. When we watched the film ahead of its commercial release, there were genuine shrieks of terror from grown-ups. The tension was palpable; I could sense the others holding their breath during certain scenes and doing what they can to stifle any sound that would come out of their mouths because the scenes were goddamn scary.
The horror was visceral as well.
While we’re frightened of what’s happening on the screen, deep inside, there’s some degree of introspection: what if this happens to me? Could this happen to me? OMG. This could happen to me!
Soo-hyun could very much be any of us—because everything she’s done on her phone are things we’re most likely to do (or may have already done). At some point, we’ve been too brash and too brave to call out someone online.
The cloak of semi-anonymity offered by our phone screens have made it easy for many of us to express disdain, disappointment, and anger towards someone without much regard to the manner in which we say it. It’s become so easy to call out and bash some stranger without no consideration to what it might result to.
And I think that’s why “Target” is so effectively scary.
While it’s showing us the horrors brought about by Soo-hyun’s actions and how she’s trying to get out of it, the movie is also bringing out primal fears in us.
Maybe that’s why some of us watching—and I’m sure others you know who’ve seen the movie—had this thought during and after the film: I’ll be more careful when buying online next time so I don’t become a target.
Target is now showing in cinemas.
