‘Good News’ review: Byun Sung-hyun turns 1970 hijacking into satirical Netflix thriller

Dir: Byun Sung-hyun. South Korea. 2025. 135mins

A genre-mashing, tone-blending, thriller-comedy, Byun Sung-hyun’s Good Information is the director’s most bold movie thus far. Break up into 5 chapters, the image playfully introduces us to Korean fixer No person (Sul Kyung-gu) through a fourth-wall-breaking narration that explains how the actual life March 1970 hijacking of Japan Airways flight 351 pertains to the arrest of a Japanese Pink Military Faction chief only a month later. Two weeks after the seize of the younger terrorist, No person is tasked with stopping 9 Pink Military Faction Marxists from absconding with one other airplane to North Korea, leading to a deeply humorous and splendidly bonkers satire. 

A biting satire about bureaucratic spinelessness

A willingness to play with type isn’t unusual to Byun. His 2024 hitwoman motion movie Kill Boksoon relied on suave staging to craft balletic confrontations that appear to shatter actuality. Netflix beforehand distributed Kill Boksoon, which premiered at Berlin, and its resolution to re-team with Byun for Good Information tracks for a corporation more and more identified for working with AAPI filmmakers like Squid Video games creator Hwang Dong-hyuk and The Shadow Strays filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto. Following its Toronto premiere and Busan berth, Good Information will arrive on the platform within the US on October 17 and may entice audiences hungry for manga references, over-the-top humour and excessive feelings. 

In Byun and Lee Jin-seong’s nimble script, a crabby older pilot complains about hemorrhoids to his younger co-pilot because the pair take off from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport with 130 passengers. As soon as airborne, the 9 hijackers who use the catchphrase “Ashita no Joe” — the title of a 1968 manga —commandeer the airplane and demand to fly to North Korea. In a scene reminscent of Dr. Strangelove, Japanese officers toss round concepts to cope with the state of affairs that may most actually end in casualties. Their incapability to step up evokes Korean Central Intelligence Company (KCIA) head Park Sang-heyeon (Ryoo Seung-bum) to step in with the hope that succeeding right here will endear the nation to the Individuals, and go away Japan owing them an enormous favor. 

To resolve the disaster, he calls in No person. Because the trickster fixer who crawls round corners with a satchel at his aspect, an animated Sul bobs and weaves to the movie’s many drastic tonal shifts. No person’s harebrained scheme includes roping within the bold radar operator Lt. Search engine marketing Go-myung (Hong Kyung) to be a fall man, lured with guarantees of promotions and medals.

Good Information performs as a biting satire about bureaucratic spinelessness. The Individuals, who don’t need to break worldwide aviation legal guidelines, would somewhat have a foreigner like Search engine marketing pose as a North Korean air site visitors controller than certainly one of their very own. The KCIA head, who hopes to decorate up an airport as North Korea to trick the hijackers into believing they’ve made it to their vacation spot, would somewhat it fall on Search engine marketing if his plans go awry. Even South Korea’s president doesn’t present as much as make an enormous resolution, desirous to to have believable deniability.   

Byun doesn’t solely goal his ire on the three international locations concerned, he additionally lampoons the Pink Military Faction. The second-in-command (Nairu Yamamoto) is an impulsive livewire able to kill everybody, whereas their chief Denji (Present Kasamatsu) seems to barely have a deal with on the state of affairs. The group is commonly tricked by Search engine marketing, or can’t determine if their votes must be majority rule or not. As a unit they foster an entertaining, unhinged dynamic that matches the equally off-kilter panic taking place on the bottom. 

Typically we leap from perspective to perspective and even into dream sequences, that are elaborately blended collectively by sharp sound cuts. Philosophical quotes, typically with unsure origins, additional destabilize viewers in a movie that loves breaking actuality. By means of all of this, the ensemble forged give unbelievable, multi-layered performances, their cautious management contrasting with the exhilaratingly madcapness of the occasions taking place round them.