Sicarius’ Guide to Killing People: A SHOP FOR KILLERS SH🔪TPOST
I am qualified to make this post because my name means Assassin in Latin. And why yes I am insufferable to watch movies with, why did you ask.
Every year I watch half a dozen plus shorter action x various genre kdramas, and I like maybe one of them if we’re lucky.
And at least once a year I sit down write out a big rant about action, and fighting and weapons and injury authenticity, in reaction to one or more of these shows, and title it much the same thing every time, and then I never post it. (e.g. my My Name Shitpost @eazal, I’m so sorry 😂)
So, consider this not so much of a shitpost about Shop For Killers per se, and more of a locked and loaded rant that I have waiting in the wings at literally any given moment any time I watch anything remotely akin to this show, and that Shop for Killers is just the sacrificial lamb of this present moment, and the one I am choosing to channel my frustration through.
THINGS IT DID RIGHT:
Most of what it got right was in the first 4 episodes, then it kinda started getting more and more dumb… so sad.
1. Sound Delay and the Speed of Sound (aka the actual only reason I am making this post at all because I wanted to SHARE ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT’S COOL)
See: video @ 2:10 specifically, it goes into this in depth.
But basically, when you’re dealing with long distance rifles, the bullet is travelling faster than the sound of the rifle, so to the person being shot at, they will not see the gun being fired, the sound of it hitting, and also HEAR the gun being fired all at the same time.
They GOT THIS RIGHT! I was SO EXCITED THAT THEY GOT THIS RIGHT. I don’t think I’ve EVER seen a movie or a tv show get this right.
When Seongjo is sniping at them from the bridge, we hear Seongjo shoot, then our protagonists (and uhm, some other guy) hear the bullet fly past them, and THEN they hear the delay of the gun firing from THEIR position.
They get the sound design with the sniper rifle right every time they shoot it. Top marks for that. 10/10.
2. Also, during the sniping scene: Recoil is a bitch, she is tiny, and that gun is big, and it would HURT, yes, and throw her across the room, yes!
(Alas, the recoil in the rest of the show isn’t as consistently accurate…)
3. “but it’s not enough to beat a man holding a knife” (Episode 4)
Yeah, if you enter a knife fight, especially unarmed chances are one but probably both of you are gonna end up fxxked up, correct, please do not enter a knife fight without a superior weapon, not even an equal one, just run, Jinman is correct here.
Knife fights are MESSY and dangerous and you WILL get cut up at bare minimum!
(Ofc then it goes and proceeds to show a bunch of unrealistic disarmaments, and well-choreographed but nonetheless knife fights that mostly ignore this… but what can you do.)
4. I liked the use of Muy Thai as a fighting art, that was fun. Not sure about the realism of her training times, but in terms of martial arts actually useful for fighting, Muy Thai is one of them. So, neat to have that awareness at least. It also has several cameos by Karambits, one of my favourite knives, a wicked little melee knife.
(Unfortunately, not really any decent, truly realistic karambit fights… as usual.)
THINGS IT DID NOT/ GENERAL RANTING:
Well, you could just watch the rest of the video in terms of guns, so, all of that, too, but I’m going to mention specifics and other stuff anyway lmao.
– Hyenas are cool. And barking doesn’t necessarily make an animal weak lmfao. I know it’s a metaphor, it’s just a dumb metaphor so it annoys me. (Inaccurate Weapons and Inaccurate Zoology are constantly fighting for my attention and which one annoys me more.)
– No earplugs, y’all are reeling, and deafer than Beethoven.
The Grey Man was a terrible movie. It was just point blank, a bad, an awful movie. Gosling slept walked through it. But, hilariously, ironically, everyone wore earplugs!!!!!
Guns are loud. Rifles are REALLY loud. Wear ear protection.
– How many times must I say this, Grenades have a kill radius of 5m and an injury radius of 15m, and you threw two. That asshole in ep 5 is dead. Not kinda messed up but still looks recognisable, not unrecognisably messed up, just dead. Very dead. Completely dead.
And our protagonists are a lot more injured than that.
How did you get the sound physics of sniper rifles correct, and the damage of a grenade wrong. Even Little Woman got this right. Please.
– Listen
The whole – THE WHOLE BALE THING???? *tears out hair* yeah, so that is basically the entire conflict the show hinges on, what about it.
First, Bale SHOULD be dead from those injuries. I’m not sure why this drama seems to think explosions cause just an ✨aesthetic✨ amount of damage and scarring.
But even so,
If someone like him is threatening you? And your family? And kills people for fun? And you have him under the knife?????
1. You stab him in the heart, breaking his sternum like you did anyway.
2. And THEN! you take OUT the knife so he bleeds out faster, cos the knife will be keeping him alive essentially at that point (minus the explosions and other injuries).
3. And then you slit his throat.
4. And you slit it well and truly.
Why would you leave any and I mean literally any possibility of him living
This show acts smart until it does the dumbest shit ever
You had time to cut his throat, you numbskull. The show just established you keep your cool in bloodshed x minutes ago. But you went for the gun???? Why make it all emotional and dramatic!
It’s a lot harder to come back from a severed jugular and carotid artery. He WILL bleed out before he can get to medical attention.
But if you’re worried his Cha Dal Geon Immunity to Death Gene will overcome even a severed jugular, cut a couple of other main arteries at the same time.
Knife’s right there, babe. Wrists, groin, armpits, neck.
Why must these shows exist only at the expense of the Supposedly Intelligent Main Character’s Intelligence. That’s rhetorical.
But really?? You should’ve put a bullet in Bale’s head three missions ago. Maybe three bullets seeing as how he has the Cha Dal Geon Immunity to Death gene. I mean that’s what *I* would’ve done… if I was a mercenary with at least an existent moral compass, no matter how broken. He’s not that good of a merc for you to have kept around as a liability for that long, surely. Come on.
I hope your absence after your fake death was because you were killing him PROPERLY this time?? Were you successful? Or did you leave him the SLIGHTEST possibility of living, again.
– Speaking of Fake Deaths, very obvious from episode one, not showing his face, and her hard sus reaction, but also he had to be alive because if he wasn’t alive he’s the biggest idiot on planet earth to kill himself over such a ridiculous blackmailing trick, when he’s been set up as … you know… not THAT much of an idiot. So instead, he’s just enough of an idiot that if he weren’t, the show wouldn’t exist … not that that would be a loss to me personally, but maybe to some others it would.
The entire show hinges on you [Jinman] not killing him [Bale] right the first time, but I just don’t get, you know… why you didn’t kill him right the first time.
If it’s something dumb like Flex Cop I can ignore a lot of these common action flaws more easily but if you’re taking your killing as seriously as this… then actually take it seriously, gosh.
– Other Speed RUN
The deaf arms dealer was cute. RIP buddy. I’m sorry about your arm.
IV pull – DING
Most of the fight scenes ranged from decent to ok to wtf was that. There was quite a wide range of styles and consistency in accuracy there, and in the aftermath lol.
I don’t think anyone reloaded enough but that’s normal 🙄 I also don’t know why our little mole was the only one wearing a bullet proof vest… Minhye sure could’ve used one.
I kind of got sick of all the fights at the end, and the structure of the show, which started out a lot better than it ended.
.
.
.
There’s more I definitely missed and or could’ve ranted about but for Version 1 of this rant, that’s all for now.
Till the next dumb action show, misuse of guns, grenades, or character that pulls out something they’ve been stabbed/shot with … whichever comes first. Maybe the next one will be a sageuk and I’ll rant about arrows.
In the meantime, I will go back to wondering why everyone in Nokdu Flower treats Yi Hyun as the Evilest of Evils for being an 19th Century Sniper.
*sorry for badmouthing Flex X Cop there, but it IS on the dumb, fun but dumb, comedy action, Skunk end of the spectrum. I am enjoying it a lot, but it’s action is just silly. That Helicopter scene? Aiiiyaaa.
The problem is I think they worked backwards (I haven’t read the book) – the niece with the reveal of the gun shop is the focal point, that’s what it wants to be about – so we have to work back to how we got to this point – her parents dying, etc etc – but by doing that, if it’s not believable enough, like here, it’s just annoying and stupid. But if Bale was killed properly, then we wouldn’t have the rest of the show that they so badly wanted to focus on, you wouldn’t have any Shop for Killers. Idk then have a smarter backstory, why don’t you 🙄🙄🙄
I liked him just from his five seconds at the beginning, and then he was dead and I was like nooo! Was happy to see him back briefly only to lose him again haha
I didn’t even watch the show, but I read your essay carefully and enjoyed all the details.
They just ignore all of them in fight scenes in dramas because they think a hero with earplugs or bulletproof vests or running when she sees she can’t overcome the situation and it’s too dangerous to handle, is not COOL enough for a hero.😅
Why thank you.
But I happen to think the opposite is cooler and more interesting, so where does that leaves us 😆😆😆 ofc, I am not most people’s target audience…
I enjoyed the show, but I do agree with all the negatives and the grenade stuff irked me to no end, especially as you pointed out tjat the protagonists escaped with little to no harm. Grenade power is not some secret knowledge that exists only among armed people, but is a general knowledge that even civilians know about.
Bale is a trigger for the entire sequence of events, so we just have to grudgingly acknowledge his existence as a guy with Cha Dal Geon’s gene of immunity. By the way is there any hope for Vagabond S2🤣🤣🤣
I will not begrudge his existence at all; they could’ve tried harder 😂😂😂
Vagabond should’ve aired two years later than it did, then it would’ve got a S2 lol.
I too thought that there were too many fights which were differently choreographed. Maybe this abundance of action directors led to vastly contrasting fighting styles and inconsistencies.
You’re so correct while no one expects anything from Chaebol Cop this kind of widely varied “action” is more irritating than awe-inspiring.
Having lots of stunt directors on an 8 episode Disney kdrama would be weird but maybe… Are there actually many listed? Cos welp, if so haha… Maybe all the different shades of fight were on purpose?? Some were just outrageous, like Minhye’s fight in the locked down living room lol.
Absolutely.
And something like this clearly takes its action and genre a lot more seriously, in that it’s designed to be a dark action show, akin to other Korean Noirs, Asian gritty action like the Raid, or the John Wick style flick, and if that’s the case, I tend to expect more of such things, especially, especially, if they get Something as right as Sound Delay in rifles.
The inconsistencies at that point immediately become not something to look over, but a glaring larger flaw in the work. They didn’t care to get it consistent, and that’s telling.
I don’t know how many action directors were there just that the “action” seems diverse.
My idea of “action” was always with a side of comedy like those Jackie Chan movies we watched as kids. While I don’t know about technicalities but I loved reading about them in your post and agree that they should not undermine that which makes it good in the first place. 😀
I absolutely ADORE watching Inside’s How Real It Is (and similar breakdowns) on YouTube. I learn a lot without sitting through a boring lecture but actually watching snippets of the movies and having experts annihilating some of it. 😂
💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
February 7, 2024 at 8:22 PM
Sicarius’ Guide to Killing People: A SHOP FOR KILLERS SH🔪TPOST
I am qualified to make this post because my name means Assassin in Latin. And why yes I am insufferable to watch movies with, why did you ask.
Every year I watch half a dozen plus shorter action x various genre kdramas, and I like maybe one of them if we’re lucky.
And at least once a year I sit down write out a big rant about action, and fighting and weapons and injury authenticity, in reaction to one or more of these shows, and title it much the same thing every time, and then I never post it. (e.g. my My Name Shitpost @eazal, I’m so sorry 😂)
So, consider this not so much of a shitpost about Shop For Killers per se, and more of a locked and loaded rant that I have waiting in the wings at literally any given moment any time I watch anything remotely akin to this show, and that Shop for Killers is just the sacrificial lamb of this present moment, and the one I am choosing to channel my frustration through.
THINGS IT DID RIGHT:
Most of what it got right was in the first 4 episodes, then it kinda started getting more and more dumb… so sad.
1. Sound Delay and the Speed of Sound (aka the actual only reason I am making this post at all because I wanted to SHARE ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT’S COOL)
See: video @ 2:10 specifically, it goes into this in depth.
But basically, when you’re dealing with long distance rifles, the bullet is travelling faster than the sound of the rifle, so to the person being shot at, they will not see the gun being fired, the sound of it hitting, and also HEAR the gun being fired all at the same time.
They GOT THIS RIGHT! I was SO EXCITED THAT THEY GOT THIS RIGHT. I don’t think I’ve EVER seen a movie or a tv show get this right.
When Seongjo is sniping at them from the bridge, we hear Seongjo shoot, then our protagonists (and uhm, some other guy) hear the bullet fly past them, and THEN they hear the delay of the gun firing from THEIR position.
They get the sound design with the sniper rifle right every time they shoot it. Top marks for that. 10/10.
2. Also, during the sniping scene:
Recoil is a bitch, she is tiny, and that gun is big, and it would HURT, yes, and throw her across the room, yes!
(Alas, the recoil in the rest of the show isn’t as consistently accurate…)
3. “but it’s not enough to beat a man holding a knife” (Episode 4)
Yeah, if you enter a knife fight, especially unarmed chances are one but probably both of you are gonna end up fxxked up, correct, please do not enter a knife fight without a superior weapon, not even an equal one, just run, Jinman is correct here.
Knife fights are MESSY and dangerous and you WILL get cut up at bare minimum!
(Ofc then it goes and proceeds to show a bunch of unrealistic disarmaments, and well-choreographed but nonetheless knife fights that mostly ignore this… but what can you do.)
4. I liked the use of Muy Thai as a fighting art, that was fun. Not sure about the realism of her training times, but in terms of martial arts actually useful for fighting, Muy Thai is one of them. So, neat to have that awareness at least. It also has several cameos by Karambits, one of my favourite knives, a wicked little melee knife.
(Unfortunately, not really any decent, truly realistic karambit fights… as usual.)
THINGS IT DID NOT/ GENERAL RANTING:
Well, you could just watch the rest of the video in terms of guns, so, all of that, too, but I’m going to mention specifics and other stuff anyway lmao.
– Hyenas are cool. And barking doesn’t necessarily make an animal weak lmfao. I know it’s a metaphor, it’s just a dumb metaphor so it annoys me. (Inaccurate Weapons and Inaccurate Zoology are constantly fighting for my attention and which one annoys me more.)
– No earplugs, y’all are reeling, and deafer than Beethoven.
The Grey Man was a terrible movie. It was just point blank, a bad, an awful movie. Gosling slept walked through it. But, hilariously, ironically, everyone wore earplugs!!!!!
Guns are loud. Rifles are REALLY loud. Wear ear protection.
– How many times must I say this, Grenades have a kill radius of 5m and an injury radius of 15m, and you threw two. That asshole in ep 5 is dead. Not kinda messed up but still looks recognisable, not unrecognisably messed up, just dead. Very dead. Completely dead.
And our protagonists are a lot more injured than that.
How did you get the sound physics of sniper rifles correct, and the damage of a grenade wrong. Even Little Woman got this right. Please.
– Listen
The whole – THE WHOLE BALE THING???? *tears out hair* yeah, so that is basically the entire conflict the show hinges on, what about it.
First, Bale SHOULD be dead from those injuries. I’m not sure why this drama seems to think explosions cause just an ✨aesthetic✨ amount of damage and scarring.
But even so,
If someone like him is threatening you? And your family? And kills people for fun? And you have him under the knife?????
1. You stab him in the heart, breaking his sternum like you did anyway.
2. And THEN! you take OUT the knife so he bleeds out faster, cos the knife will be keeping him alive essentially at that point (minus the explosions and other injuries).
3. And then you slit his throat.
4. And you slit it well and truly.
Why would you leave any and I mean literally any possibility of him living
This show acts smart until it does the dumbest shit ever
You had time to cut his throat, you numbskull. The show just established you keep your cool in bloodshed x minutes ago. But you went for the gun???? Why make it all emotional and dramatic!
It’s a lot harder to come back from a severed jugular and carotid artery. He WILL bleed out before he can get to medical attention.
But if you’re worried his Cha Dal Geon Immunity to Death Gene will overcome even a severed jugular, cut a couple of other main arteries at the same time.
Knife’s right there, babe. Wrists, groin, armpits, neck.
Why must these shows exist only at the expense of the Supposedly Intelligent Main Character’s Intelligence. That’s rhetorical.
But really?? You should’ve put a bullet in Bale’s head three missions ago. Maybe three bullets seeing as how he has the Cha Dal Geon Immunity to Death gene. I mean that’s what *I* would’ve done… if I was a mercenary with at least an existent moral compass, no matter how broken. He’s not that good of a merc for you to have kept around as a liability for that long, surely. Come on.
I hope your absence after your fake death was because you were killing him PROPERLY this time?? Were you successful? Or did you leave him the SLIGHTEST possibility of living, again.
– Speaking of Fake Deaths, very obvious from episode one, not showing his face, and her hard sus reaction, but also he had to be alive because if he wasn’t alive he’s the biggest idiot on planet earth to kill himself over such a ridiculous blackmailing trick, when he’s been set up as … you know… not THAT much of an idiot. So instead, he’s just enough of an idiot that if he weren’t, the show wouldn’t exist … not that that would be a loss to me personally, but maybe to some others it would.
The entire show hinges on you [Jinman] not killing him [Bale] right the first time, but I just don’t get, you know… why you didn’t kill him right the first time.
If it’s something dumb like Flex Cop I can ignore a lot of these common action flaws more easily but if you’re taking your killing as seriously as this… then actually take it seriously, gosh.
– Other Speed RUN
The deaf arms dealer was cute. RIP buddy. I’m sorry about your arm.
IV pull – DING
Most of the fight scenes ranged from decent to ok to wtf was that. There was quite a wide range of styles and consistency in accuracy there, and in the aftermath lol.
I don’t think anyone reloaded enough but that’s normal 🙄 I also don’t know why our little mole was the only one wearing a bullet proof vest… Minhye sure could’ve used one.
I kind of got sick of all the fights at the end, and the structure of the show, which started out a lot better than it ended.
.
.
.
There’s more I definitely missed and or could’ve ranted about but for Version 1 of this rant, that’s all for now.
Till the next dumb action show, misuse of guns, grenades, or character that pulls out something they’ve been stabbed/shot with … whichever comes first. Maybe the next one will be a sageuk and I’ll rant about arrows.
In the meantime, I will go back to wondering why everyone in Nokdu Flower treats Yi Hyun as the Evilest of Evils for being an 19th Century Sniper.
Goodbye!
☠☠☠
💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
February 7, 2024 at 8:29 PM
*sorry for badmouthing Flex X Cop there, but it IS on the dumb, fun but dumb, comedy action, Skunk end of the spectrum. I am enjoying it a lot, but it’s action is just silly. That Helicopter scene? Aiiiyaaa.
Kurama
February 7, 2024 at 9:22 PM
For Jin-Man was stupid, you can’t be naive in this job. And because of that a lot of people died and his niece couldn’t have a normal life.
I wished to see more about the deaf arms dealer 😥
💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
February 7, 2024 at 9:32 PM
The problem is I think they worked backwards (I haven’t read the book) – the niece with the reveal of the gun shop is the focal point, that’s what it wants to be about – so we have to work back to how we got to this point – her parents dying, etc etc – but by doing that, if it’s not believable enough, like here, it’s just annoying and stupid. But if Bale was killed properly, then we wouldn’t have the rest of the show that they so badly wanted to focus on, you wouldn’t have any Shop for Killers. Idk then have a smarter backstory, why don’t you 🙄🙄🙄
I liked him just from his five seconds at the beginning, and then he was dead and I was like nooo! Was happy to see him back briefly only to lose him again haha
Ziziboice
February 7, 2024 at 9:47 PM
I didn’t even watch the show, but I read your essay carefully and enjoyed all the details.
They just ignore all of them in fight scenes in dramas because they think a hero with earplugs or bulletproof vests or running when she sees she can’t overcome the situation and it’s too dangerous to handle, is not COOL enough for a hero.😅
💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
February 7, 2024 at 9:51 PM
Why thank you.
But I happen to think the opposite is cooler and more interesting, so where does that leaves us 😆😆😆 ofc, I am not most people’s target audience…
Ziziboice
February 7, 2024 at 10:01 PM
I think so too, being realistic is more interesting that being a dumb and lucky hero. 😄
emsel
February 7, 2024 at 10:29 PM
I enjoyed the show, but I do agree with all the negatives and the grenade stuff irked me to no end, especially as you pointed out tjat the protagonists escaped with little to no harm. Grenade power is not some secret knowledge that exists only among armed people, but is a general knowledge that even civilians know about.
Bale is a trigger for the entire sequence of events, so we just have to grudgingly acknowledge his existence as a guy with Cha Dal Geon’s gene of immunity. By the way is there any hope for Vagabond S2🤣🤣🤣
💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
February 7, 2024 at 10:33 PM
I will not begrudge his existence at all; they could’ve tried harder 😂😂😂
Vagabond should’ve aired two years later than it did, then it would’ve got a S2 lol.
🌸 Cera (@Seeker) 🌸
February 12, 2024 at 11:06 AM
Thank you for a very informative post. 😊
I too thought that there were too many fights which were differently choreographed. Maybe this abundance of action directors led to vastly contrasting fighting styles and inconsistencies.
You’re so correct while no one expects anything from Chaebol Cop this kind of widely varied “action” is more irritating than awe-inspiring.
💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
February 12, 2024 at 12:59 PM
Having lots of stunt directors on an 8 episode Disney kdrama would be weird but maybe… Are there actually many listed? Cos welp, if so haha… Maybe all the different shades of fight were on purpose?? Some were just outrageous, like Minhye’s fight in the locked down living room lol.
Absolutely.
And something like this clearly takes its action and genre a lot more seriously, in that it’s designed to be a dark action show, akin to other Korean Noirs, Asian gritty action like the Raid, or the John Wick style flick, and if that’s the case, I tend to expect more of such things, especially, especially, if they get Something as right as Sound Delay in rifles.
The inconsistencies at that point immediately become not something to look over, but a glaring larger flaw in the work. They didn’t care to get it consistent, and that’s telling.
🌸 Cera (@Seeker) 🌸
February 13, 2024 at 5:03 AM
I don’t know how many action directors were there just that the “action” seems diverse.
My idea of “action” was always with a side of comedy like those Jackie Chan movies we watched as kids. While I don’t know about technicalities but I loved reading about them in your post and agree that they should not undermine that which makes it good in the first place. 😀
bomibeans
February 26, 2024 at 9:27 PM
I absolutely ADORE watching Inside’s How Real It Is (and similar breakdowns) on YouTube. I learn a lot without sitting through a boring lecture but actually watching snippets of the movies and having experts annihilating some of it. 😂
💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
April 18, 2024 at 3:31 PM
The only problem ofc being that then you just gain more and more thinga not never be satisfied with in film etc. Many such cases