“Quite possibly the best spy thriller – that isn’t exactly a spy thriller – I have seen in years.”

I recall trying to watch “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” on Netflix a few months ago, and honestly I couldn’t sit through it.  It’s not that it was a terrible film, it’s that it’s an incredibly predictable one.

It opens on an opulent set piece – Vatican City, if I recall – and despite how complex the game the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) plays, everything pretty much works as it should.

Though in my experience, the greater the complexity a particular task involves, there’s almost an exponential increase in the odds of things going wrong.

That’s a premise that works to devastating affect in “Accident,” a South Korean film by Pou-Soi Cheang that was originaly released in 2009, and is currently unspooling on Netflix.

The premise of the film revolves around a team of assassins, led by a man simply known as ‘The Brain’ (Louis Koo).  Their speciality is in having their jobs appear as accidents, and they go though elaborate – though realistic – means to make them appear as such.

One of their jobs, which involved the killing of a wheelchair-bound man (after a moment of uncertainty) goes as planned, just before things go extremely pear-shaped in a manner reminiscent of the methods his own team employs.

The Brain assumes that he has been betrayed by one of the surviving members of his own team, and looks to find out who betrayed him, and how.

What’s make the film so remarkable is primarily the performance of Louis Koo.  When we first meet The Brain, he’s so assured, controlled and in control, till the aforementioned complexity makes it so that he cannot see beyond his own biases and prejudices.

Which lead to his eventual destruction, by a means that even his considerable intellect could not comprehend.