Intruder (Korea 2020) - Movie Review

Welcome to our short review of the chilling Korean mystery thriller Intruder.

What’s this movie about?

Widow Seo-jin is still struggling with the death of his wife in a hit-and-run accident. He and his young daughter have moved back with his parents in their large house, where they hold onto hope that his missing sister Yu-jin will return home after 25 years.

And one day she does. While his parents welcome her back with loving arms, Seo-jin suspects Yu-jin is not really his sister. Something feels off, and his quest to discover who she really is has detrimental effects on his mental health and his relationship with his parents.

Is it Worth Watching?

This is another movie of two different halves, with the first half being a brilliant tension building thriller, while the second half being a disappointing and unbelievable revelation.

Two strong lead actors, and an excellent child performance, aren’t enough to save this movie that takes a 180 in the believability and logic plots at around the half-way mark as it introduces an element that didn’t work for me.

Without giving too much away, the movie feels like it wants to take some inspiration from Parasite, but instead of following its example by using interesting characters and exercise restraint, it does the opposite but keeping too much information about Yu-jin from the audience.

Mix that in with a plot twist that I dislike and an ending void of consequences, and this was a movie I barely struggled to get to the end of.