The much-anticipated Veteran (2014) sequel I, The Executioner by Ryoo Seung-wan has gone on release in time for the Chuseok (Thanksgiving) holidays in Korea, one of the biggest holiday seasons of the year with families across the country coming together. It is poised to do well with the original selling 13 million tickets in 2014. Presales are illustrating it will open to impressive numbers this weekend with over 280,000 tickets prebooked ahead of its release today, September 13. There are also few other films being released given the expectation for it to dominate during the holiday. 

Much will depend on word-of-mouth but with the film having screened in both Cannes and Toronto garnering strong reviews, it is expected to give the industry a further boost in what is a complex post-Covid landscape. Chuseok last year saw several titles underperform including Kim Jee-woon’s COBWEB (2023). 

I, the Executioner sees Hwang Jung-min’s character track down a serial killer with the help of rookie played by Jung Hae-in. It also stars Oh Dal-su, Jang Yoon-ju and Kim Shi-hoo, which also featured in the original. 

This week owing to the release of the Veteran sequel we will take a deep dive into Korean detective films beginning with Kang Woo-suk’s Two Cops released in the 1990s before moving onto the contemporary era with Tell me Something (1999), Public Enemy (2002), Wild Card (2003), Running Turtle (2009), A Hard Day (2013), Confidential Assignment (2017) and Miss and Mrs. Cops (2019).