It goes without saying that the murder mystery has got to be regarded as the hottest genre on Netflix – as it has been for a while – with yet another sprawling investigation taking up a residency at the top end of the charts. However, Unlocked has added further fuel to the fire that the techno thriller could be on the verge of making a comeback in a major way.
Per FlixPatrol, the South Korean original can be found as the third most-watched movie among subscribers around the world, having secured a Top 10 position in 47 countries through its opening weekend of availability. When you couple that with the worldwide popularity of Red Rose on the episodic front, then a change could be afoot.
In the very same weekend, a pair of techno thrillers that couldn’t be more different on almost every level have emerged as the very highest echelons of the film and television rankings, so the murder mystery’s near-monopoly on the viewership habits of subscribers everywhere could be about to loosen.
Not to be confused with the thunderously average Orlando Bloom actioner of the same name, director Kim Tae-joon’s Unlocked finds Chun Woo-hee’s Na-mi losing her smartphone on the way home from work, a perilous mishap in an age where such a small device contains every shred of important information about its owner.
Her phone is returned eventually by Yim Si-wan’s Jun-yeong, but he’s installed it with spyware to learn every single thing he can about the object of his affection, before deciding to try and make a play for a twisted romance by weaponizing the intimate knowledge he’s acquired by nefarious means. Needless to say, things swiftly spiral out of control as the ruse comes ever closer to being exposed.