Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ballerina’ on Netflix, Where A Painful Loss Puts A Woman On The Offensive Against A Ring Of Sex Traffickers

In Ballerina (Netflix), a young woman with a particular set of skills almost single handedly enacts the last wish of her only friend – to do all of the revenge on the slimeball criminals who ruined her life and promise as a dancer. Ballerina, written and directed by Lee Chung-hyun (The Call), features Jeon Jong-seo and Park Yu-rim, who also co-starred in Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area, the Money Heist spinoff where they played Tokyo and Denver, respectively.

BALLERINA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: What kind of work Ok-ju (Jeon Jong-seo) actually does is only ever implied. But we understand her formidable skill set from the jump, as do the three or four goons who chose the wrong late-night convenience store to rob. After stopping their deadly knife thrusts with canned vegetables and tossing them bodily through assorted racks of Tteokbokki Chips, Ok-ju goes back to quietly purchasing her cereal, and heads home to silently brood. She seems to be on an extended leave of absence from some kind of high-end security firm. And when her friend Min-hee (Park Yu-rim) calls – “Ballerina” in Ok-ju’s phone – she picks up their usual haul of gin and lemonade and heads over to her place to hang out. 

That’s where things sour. Min-hee has killed herself, but not before leaving Ok-ju a note. “Please get revenge for me! I think you can do it; I had so much fun drinking with you.” And in flashbacks, we learn how the two met again by chance. At the cake shop where she worked when she wasn’t studying and performing ballet, Min-hee recognized Ok-ju from their middle school days and said hello. Cue all of the Idyllic days spent by the sea, and lots of laughing and running together, all shot with light flair in bright honeysuckles and pink. It’s all to better differentiate these wonderful memories Ok-ju has with her friend from her current reality, where it’s always the dead of night, neon bleeds into puddles of recent rain, and the man who drove Min-hee to suicide deals in drugs, torture porn, and the trafficking of helpless women for sex.

Choi (Kim Ji-hoon), together with his scumbag pharmacist buddy, is actually operating outside of an even larger and already dangerous mafia syndicate. And after an encounter with Ok-ju where she gets the better of his face with the edge of her blade, Choi’s big boss appears with a warning. He doesn’t recall telling Choi to sell date rape drugs and “make weird porn”; he wants Choi to capture Ok-ju alive, presumably to meet some other fate at the hands of the mob. But Ok-ju has her own plan, and it involves using her work contacts to gather up some guns and other key equipment. Her profession, even her own life – none of it matters anymore. She’ll chase down Choi and the larger criminal operation he’s a part of. Go ahead and try to run, Ok-ju says. “I’ll hunt you all the way down to hell.”

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Not to be confused with that other Ballerina, set for release in 2024, the first feature film in the John Wick spinoff hopper (see also the Peacock limited series The Continental), which will feature Ana de Armas as an assassin trained as a Ballerina in the Wick universe. And the stark pallor of Lee Chung-hyun’s Ballerina, not to mention all of the bullet battles between its heroine and gangs of faceless thugs, would feat neatly alongside the vendetta and carnage unleashed by Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Kate.  

Performance Worth Watching: Park Yu-rim is really great in the extended flashbacks that reveal more of the relationship between Min-hee and Ok-ju. Fun-loving, an aquarium enthusiast, and full of a zest for life her new friend longs for, Park also represents well the physical and psychological pain Min-hee experiences at the hands of Choi.

Memorable Dialogue: “The day I ran into you,” Ok-ju remembers telling her departed pal, “I realized for the first time how much fun life could be.”  

Sex and Skin: Sexual violence is a consistent topic here, as are the horrors of sex trafficking and snuff films. 

Our Take: When the cold metric of revenge is required, it’s always good to have on hand somebody you can call with access to a flamethrower. From her checked-out moping and blank stare, it’s easy to understand where Jeon Jong-seo’s Ok-ju is coming from, and that’s before she goes full one-woman-army on the lowlifes who drove her friend to suicide. Her profession had already ground her down, to the point that she wondered to Min-hee about dying in the line of work before she ever had a chance to really try and live. But it’s a contact at her security firm she turns to when firepower is required, and that brings us back to the flamethrower. Introduce something like this, with its shoulder rig of heavy tanks, long triggered wand, and a spew of deadly arcing flame, and there’s no way it won’t end up being deployed against the protagonist’s targets. But while it’s extremely obvious, that doesn’t diminish the effectiveness of the scene, once it happens.

Ballerina is single-minded like that. In the flashbacks, Ok-ju and Min-hee seem like the only two people in the world, and as her present becomes more and more frayed, Ok-ju becomes a solitary warrior against Choi. Sure, there are rows and rows of face-tatted, ax-wielding henchmen that she’ll eventually have to dispatch. But even when she’s mowing them down Wick style, Ok-ju is really only fighting for that one thing, the revenge Min-hee wished for. And Ballerina draws a lot of character out of Jeon Jon-seo’s detached performance, plus a little bit of well-placed dark humor with the appearance of that flame-tossing device. Turns out the whole rig fits comfortably into the sculpted passenger seat of a Lamborghini Huracán. Bet you didn’t see that coming, sex trafficking scum! Flame on.    

Our Call: STREAM IT. There’s one thing going on here, and that’s revenge. But director Lee Chung-hyun draws a lot of style out of a nighttime city alive with danger, Jeon Jong-seo is an asskicker of few words, and the ultimate showdown isn’t any less satisfying just because you knew it was coming. 

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.