Jang Eun-ha (Park So-dam) is a high-speed driver working in the Korean underworld. When a mission goes awry, she finds herself protecting an innocent young boy from the full weight of a criminal manhunt. Special Delivery (2022), directed by Park Dae-min, does not innovate much or present anything an average action flick fan has not seen before, but it has a propulsive energy to it, some strong lead performances, and a throbbing electronic soundtrack. Some times it is okay to simply follow a formula if that formula works, and if you follow it well.

A major part of Special Delivery‘s appeal is star Park So-dam who, after 13 years on screen in South Korea, suddenly gained international attention via her role in Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning thriller Parasite (2019). Special Delivery was not her immediate follow-up work – that was 2020 drama Fukuoka – but it was certainly her highest-profile and most commercial project since. There is not much to play in Eun-ha, who is as generic a character as action protagonists tend to be, but Park performs her part with plenty of humour, charisma, and cool. She also cuts a nicely iconic figure; I do not remember the last fast-driving protagonist to own so many fashionable jackets.

Much of the film sees her paired with innocent boy Seo-won, played by child actor Jung Hyeon-jun (coincidentally also from Parasite). It is yet another slice of formulaic action, although in this case the child feels a little less stereotypical than usual. He lacks the ‘wise beyond their years’ personality and tone that usually accompanies such characters, and seems unusually prone to panic, freak out, or sit down for prolonged sobbing fit. The two actors play off one another well, and develop a rather likeable relationship.

Song Sae-byok plays the villainous Jo Kyeung-pil straight out of Luc Besson’s Leon: The Professional (1994), not simply because of the character splitting their time between being a criminal gang boss and a police detective but also because Song largely lifts his persona from Gary Oldman’s work in that earlier movie. He fits the piece, and he over-acts enthusiastically, but it is another sign of how derivative Special Delivery ultimately is – no matter how well it plays the stereotypes or riffs upon other films.

The film opens with a bravura car chase sequence that showcases Eun-ha’s skills and is very well paced and edited, but it is slightly disappointing that it never quite embraces high-speed chases again. There is some car-based action peppered through the film, but it never quite hits the visceral thrills of that first scene. The physical action is well staged, and surprisingly impactful at times, but when promised a car chase movie one expects a few more car chases.

Despite some mild disappointments, Special Delivery looks the business, plays well, and smartly gets off the screen before outlasting its welcome. Possibly not the most inventive of films, but it spins up near-guaranteed satisfaction for its target audience.