The South Korean psychological thriller film was released on February 17, 2023, on the streaming platform Netflix. The film is a rollercoaster of emotion that binds the audience to the story from the start to the end.
The film is written and directed by Kim Tae-Joon and is distributed by Netflix and CJ ENM. The run time of the movie is 117 minutes or 2hr 17min. This dark Korean film will give you goosebumps and leave you biting your nails in anticipation of what’s going to happen next.
The lead cast of the film stars Chun Woo-hae who plays the protagonist of the film Lee Na-mi, and Im Si-wan who plays the antagonist, Oh Jun-Yeong.
The supporting cast of the film includes Kim Hee-won, who plays the role of Woo- Ji-man as a detective in search of the serial killer, Park Ho-san, who plays Le Seung-woo as Nami’s father, Kim Ye-won who plays the role of Jeong Eun-joo as Nami’s best friend, Kim Joo-ryoung as Eun-mi and Gil Hae-yeon.
The film gave a gist to the audience of the downfall that came with the advancement of technology. Technology has been a helping hand to people since its introduction to humans, but with it came several possibilities for invasion of privacy and cyber safety. The film has just shown the audience the flip side of technology.
The film is based on a novel written by Akira Teshigawara with the same name that was greatly enjoyed by the public. The film paints a vivid picture of reality of having one’s data online and the extent the data could be used against them for the audience.
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Unlocked Ending Explained
The film plot follows a hardworking young woman Le Nam-Mi who works for a start-up as a marketer and how her life turns upside down from the day she loses her phone. The film begins showing a series of random people using their mobile phones to play games, explore social media, make a call, or meet new people.
As Nam-Mi is returning to her house in Seoul after a night of partying, she falls asleep on the bus on the way. In a hurry to get off the bus at her stop, Nam-Mi forgets her phone on the bus.
Nam-Mi’s phone is picked up by a Jun-Yeong, an expert hacker from the bus who later uses a voice modulation app to inform Nam-Mi to pick up her phone from a repair shop nearby when she uses her friend’s phone to call her phone.
The person who has, Nam-Mi’s phone is revealed to be a stalker who uses Nam-Mi’s voice to access her phone. The stalker, Oh Jun-Yeong installs spyware on Nam-Mi’s phone, he used to access Nam-Mi’s message exchanges and location to know everything about hers.
Nam-Mi unaware of her phone being used to spy on her does everything as she would normally do. At the same time Oh Jun-Yeong keeps an eye on Nam-Mi continuously monitoring her every move.
Oh Jun-Yeong pretends to have similar interests as Nam-Mi to grow closer to her. He constantly runs into her, thus raising suspicion in Nam-Mi’s father’s mind. Oh Jun-Yeong pretends to be a software worker and helps Nam-Mi discover the spyware and who installed it.
Nam-Mi gets fired from her work after confidential information is leaked, through her IP address. Nam-Mi is suspicious of her best friend being the one to install the spyware on her phone. Nam-Mi also gets enamored by Oh Jun-Yeong after she realizes they have a lot in common.
In the parallel time, we see detective Woo Ji-Man investigating the cases involving the murder of several victims whose bodies start appearing in the place where his son frequently used to visit. Through the clues, the detective raises his suspicion about his son being the predator.
Nam-Mi starts growing suspicious about Oh Jun-Yeong and informs the detectives about the same after she observes Oh Jun-Yeong and his obsessive behavior towards her. Oh Jun-Yeong tried to alienate Nam-Mi from her friends and her dad to make her his prey.
In the end, Oh Jun-Yeong reaches Nam-Mi by kidnapping her father, and a fight for survival ensues. Fortunately for Nam-Mi and her father, the detectives arrived at their location in time to save them from drowning.
Is Yeong The Real Killer?
The movie ending left a large portion of the audience in utter confusion as initially, people thought the serial killer was the detectives’ son, as the collected clues pointed out. But the ending turned out to be a lot different than the one audience speculated.
After Nam-Mi informs the police not to follow or track her, Oh Jun-Yeong would still be stalking her. Oh Jun-Yeong had kidnapped Nam-Mi’s father and kept him hidden in his house. He blackmails Nam-Mi to come and rescue her father if she wants him to live.
Nam-Mi reaches the location where her father is held captive, and a fight for survival ensues. Nam-Mi begs Oh Jun-Yeong to let her father go. Oh Jun-Yeong confronts Nam-Mi and informs her everything he is doing to her is because she didn’t take care of her phone and it got into the wrong hand.
He has Nam-Mi’s dad tied up in his bathtub filled with water. Nam-Mi tries to protect herself with a pocket knife. She has to give up on protecting herself after witnessing her father’s condition.
Oh Jun-Yeong then drowns Nam-Mi’s father and ties her at the same time. He tries to drown, but both Nam-Mi and her dad ignoring Nam-Mi’s pleas to let them go. Fortunately, the detectives reach Nam-Mi’s location on time and prevent the father-daughter duo from drowning.
We witness Ji-Man and his associates entering Oh Jun-Yeong’s house. Ji-Man loses his temper and brutally beats Oh Jun-Yeong up. Oh Jun-Yeong keeps taunting Ji-Man about him being his estranged son.
Upon a closer look, Ji-Man realizes the stalker isn’t his son and questions him about his son’s whereabouts. Oh Jun-Yeong continues taunting Ji-Man as he starts to search Oh Jun-Yeong’s house for clues to find his son.
Ji-Man comes across a drawer that has several phones in it. Upon opening the phones it is revealed to have photos of the dead victim as screensavers, thus indicating they are the victim’s phone.
The phones are numbered in the order Oh Jun-Yeong killed his victims. Jun-Yeong is also surrounded by notes of his murder plans. Ji-Man goes to number zero that had his son’s name on it.
In the end, it gets clear that the real Jun-Yeong had been killed by the psychopath a long time ago. The real Jun-Yeong was the serial Killer’s first victim, and he noted every little detail about him to take over his identity.
The psychopath is an imposter who took over Ji-Man’s son’s identity to avoid getting caught by the police. Jun-Yeong offers to surrender himself, but Nam-Mi shoots him before he can say the next words.
The incident is covered by the media, thus garnering a lot towards Nam-Mi and her father’s café. It is also revealed the imposter has no identity of his own as he was never registered at the time of his birth. The film ends indicating another stalker who records Nam-Mi. The original stalker is also not dead, he just got unconscious hearing the gunshot.
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Will There Be A Sequel Of Unlocked?
The audience loved the subtle mix of serial killer plot with a real-life issue and applauded Kim-Tae’s direction. The casting of the actors have also been done wonderfully. The film received a huge response from the audience. Eventhough the film is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it still managed to gain huge viewership.
As the film ended on a cliff hanger hinting towards the rise of another stalker, there can be a sequel made for the film. Although at present the creative team of the film hasn’t announced anything about the sequel at the moment. There certainly is a scope for the second installment of the film, we can just wait to see what’s going to happen next?
The series is available on Netflix for people to watch.
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