Office (2015) - A Review

 

Office is not the movie I was expecting!

Office (also known as Opiseu) is a mystery/thriller/horror movie released in South Korea in 2015 and stars  Go Ah-sung, Park Sung-woong, Bae Seong-woo, Ryu Hyun-kyung, Lee Chae-eun, Park Jeong-min, Kim Eui-sung, and Son Soo-hyun. The movie was directed by Hong Won-Chan.

Go Ah-sung as Lee Mi-rae. Great performance from her!

In Office, Go Ah-sung plays Lee Mi-Rae, a young intern who works at an office for a large company. Mi-Rae is very introverted and a bit meek. She is a focused, diligent worker who just hopes to eventually get hired full-time by the company. Her co-workers treat her very badly, not inviting her to company events, talking behind her back, and ridiculing her work ethic. The only person who treated her with kindness and respect was Kim Byeong-Gook (played by Bae Sung-woo), the section chief of her office.

Unfortunately, as we find out at the beginning of the movie, Mr. Kim brutally murdered his family and has gone missing. The police are searching for him and trying to get background information on him from his co-workers. Detective Jong-Hoon (played by Park Sung-woong) is in charge of the case, and he can tell everyone at the office is hiding something from him...

Bae Seong-woo as Mr. Kim. What, if anything, made him snap?

 The police find out Mr. Kim returned to the office right after the murder, but that he never left. Detective Jong-Hoon focuses on the office, and even shows kindness towards Mi-rae. Unfortunately for Mi-rae, the stress at her job is building up, her co-workers are being even more harsh towards her, and her raging jerk of a boss has hired a new, beautiful intern. Will Detective Jong-Hoon find Mr. Kim, and can Mi-rae survive her toxic workplace environment?

Office is a movie where there are several things going on with the story. On the surface, it is a mystery/thriller/horror movie, where you wonder if the killer will get caught before he kills again. Then there is the underlying story of working in an office (or any other job) and dealing with the politics and trying to get ahead. It is kind of a story about life itself. There is another element, but saying what it is would spoil the movie, so just know that this element is what people who dislike the movie don't understand about it. I think the way the movie handles all these elements is pretty clever.

Lee Mi-rae is treated as an outsider by her co-workers.

The actors do a great job in portraying their characters. Go Ah-sung is incredibly sympathetic as Lee Mi-rae. You see her struggle to be accepted at her job and how her co-workers are so hard on her; you just want to see her succeed. You really hope she doesn't succumb to the toxic workplace environment... Bae Seong-woo plays Mr. Kim as a nice, kind, and sympathetic man until he murders his family. After that, he is completely creepy! There are some good scares involving his character! Kim Eui-sung plays Director Kim Sang-Gyu, Lee Mi-rae's boss. He is such a raging jerk, you can't help but hate him (though this character isn't as much of a bastard as the one he plays in Train To Busan). Lee Mi-rae's co-workers, especially Hong Ji-Sun (played by Ryu Hyun-kyung) are such jerks to her, you can't stand them. I've worked with people like them, so I'm a bit biased towards Lee Mi-rae for the most part.

In conclusion, Office is a pretty good thriller. I say give it a chance. The acting is great, the story is layered, and there are some pretty shocking twists and turns. Everything that happens to certain characters is explained in the movie, you just have to make a certain leap in logic to understand it. Go Ah-sung is so good in this; you should watch this movie for her performance alone. This is the kind of movie that'll have you thinking about it long after you've watched it.

Reviewed by David Williams