At The Movies: Familiar fare in South Korean thriller Hijack 1971 and action-comedy Jackpot!

Hijack 1971 (NC16)

100 minutes, opens on Aug 22
★★★☆☆

The story: In January 1971, domestic airliner Korean Air F-27 departing from Sokcho, and bound for Seoul, is commandeered and diverted to North Korea by a mad bomber.

Hijack 1971 is far from being the first skyjacking drama. But not even the other recent South Korean hit, Emergency Declaration (2021), has the additional real-life peril of military jets from South Korea and the North in pursuit, racing to shoot the carrier down before it crosses the 38th Parallel.

A prologue set in 1969 introduces Tae-in (Ha Jung-woo) as an Air Force pilot dishonourably discharged for refusing orders to disable another such defecting aircraft.

He is now the first officer on board.

The hijacker is an aggrieved 22-year-old (Yeo Jin-goo), who endured torture and imprisonment under false charges of being a communist spy. When he detonates a hand grenade shortly after take-off to seize control of the cockpit, blinding the captain (Sung Dong-il), Tae-in becomes the one responsible for the safe return of the 51 panicky passengers, with only a young flight attendant (Chae Soo-bin) to assist him.

The characters are motley archetypes and include a pompous businessman, a newly-wed couple and a peasant with a live chicken that would be funny if they were not all about to be killed.

Their hour-long fight for survival is a well-executed thriller despite the familiar genre elements.

First-time feature director Kim Sung-han filmed the chaotic action inside an actual F-27. He is precise also in his reconstruction of this darkest period in post-war Korea, when historic intra-peninsula tensions held everyone hostage to paranoia and mistrust.

Hot take: Based on a true incident, this is an efficiently told saga of in-flight terror that sticks the landing.

Jackpot! (M18)

106 minutes, available on Prime Video
★★★☆☆ 

The story: American comedienne Awkwafina stars as down-on-her-luck actress Katie Kim, who unwittingly comes into possession of a US$3.6 billion (S$4.7 million) lottery ticket. She hires John Cena’s freelance bodyguard Noel because, in the Grand Lottery of 2030 California, anyone can legally claim the winnings by killing the winner before sundown.

Hollywood director Paul Feig of Bridesmaids (2011) and the gender-reversed Ghostbusters remake (2016) puts his heroines in extreme situations. Katie, newly arrived in Los Angeles, thus finds herself running for her life over a day-long cross-city chase in the action comedy Jackpot!, while a drone alerts crazed jackpot hunters to her every location.

Awkwafina has deadpan timing, and Noel is a sweet-natured lunk protecting her for a cut of her prize money.

A skeevy Simu Liu is his professional arch-rival called in for reinforcement when Noel’s bone-cracking, groin-stomping tactics – the humour is not sophisticated – prove inadequate against a mob encompassing black-belt martial artists, nice old women, the police and Katie’s psychotic Airbnb host (Ayden Mayeri).

All these slapstick side characters are at once annoying and savage as they compete to do Katie in, using axes, knives and stilettos.

Greed and self-preservation have made assassins of the citizenry four years after the government instated the lottery in response to the Great Depression of 2026.

The dystopian caper with its state-sanctioned violence is like The Purge horror anthology (2013 to 2021) played for laughs, but expect no social commentary on capitalism.

Expect nothing, in fact, from this Amazon Studios streaming title beyond fitfully diverting mindlessness.

Hot take: The leads are a likeable odd couple, however disposable their chaotic romp.