HI-FIVE (하이파이브) (2025)

Genre: Action/Comedy
Director: Kang Hyeong-cheol
Cast: Lee Jaein, Ahn Jae Hong, Ra Miran, Kim Hie-won, Oh Jung-se, Park Jinyoung
Runtime: 1 hr 59 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Sexual References and Violence)
Released By: GV and Purple Plan
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 12 June 2025

Synopsis: Wan-Seo (Lee Jaein), Ji-Seong (Ahn Jaehong), Sun-Nyeo (Ra Miran), Yak-Sun (Kim Hiewon), and Ki-Dong come from different backgrounds, but they have one thing in common: they all received organ transplants from one person. Along with their improved health, they also received an unexpected supernatural power. These five people become aware of each other’s existence and form a team. With their different personalities, they often quarrel, and accidents never cease to happen. Meanwhile, Young-Chun (Park Jinyoung), who is the leader of a fake religion, received a pancreas transplant and also gained supernatural powers. He goes out looking for the rest of the transplantees to achieve his dream of becoming the absolute being.

Movie Review:

‘Hi-Five’ isn’t your typical Marvel or DC superhero movie – instead of extraterrestrials, the villain here is altogether human, who like our five ordinary persons turned superhumans, is blessed with superpowers after receiving an organ transplant.

First among equals is Wan-seo (Lee Jae-In), a plucky Taekwondo-loving high-school teenager who recovers miraculously from a long illness after receiving a heart transplant. Not only does she fail to heed her overprotective Taekwondo instructor father’s words not to over-exert, Wan-seo decides soon after the operation to put her newfound abilities to the test by running up a steep slope and realising she can overtake a delivery worker on a scooter as well as leap stories into the air.

It is from Wan-seo’s point of view that we get to meet the rest of the rag-tag quintet. Wan-seo’s extraordinary ability catches the eye of struggling writer Ji-sung (Ahn Jae-hong), who after receiving a lung transplant has acquired the ability of exhaling gale-force winds. Recognising that there may be others like them, Wan-seo and Ji-sung set out to find the rest who had benefitted from the same organ donor.

That journey brings them sequentially to Sun-nyeo (Ra Mi-ran), a meek yogurt saleswoman who rides a delivery vehicle and whose powers will only be known much later both to her and to us; Yak-sun (Kim Hee-won), a factory manager who has gained the powers of healing through his hands after a liver transplant; and last but not least, Ki-dong (Yoo Ah-in), a cocky hipster wanna-be who can manipulate electromagnetic waves after his cornea transplant.

Like we said, it’s a motley ensemble and writer-director Kang Hyeong-cheol makes the best of his conceit for goofy, laugh-out-loud fun. Much of the first hour gets its verve from the back-and-forth bickering between Ji-sung and Ki-dong, whose respective egos clash in humorous ways, including fighting over a plate of ‘chikin’ (or ‘fried chicken’ in Korean) at a fried chicken joint that comes to be their default gathering place. There is also the occasional run-ins, which double up as occasions for the five of them to unleash their powers and discover how best to complement each other.

In particular, their biggest threat is Young-chun, a cult leader who is rescued from the verge of death after a pancreas transplant, and who gains the ability from there to absorb the youth of others. First played by veteran actor Shin Goo, Young-chun morphs into Park Jin-young over the course of the movie, much to the chagrin of his equally megalomaniac daughter Choon-hwa (Jin Hee-kyung). It is Choon-hwa who first sends a crew after the quintet, in a bid to harness their powers; although after discovering that there are others like him, Young-chun sets out to acquire their powers for himself.

So yes, this is ultimately a story about the responsibility that comes with power, pitting the despotic Young-chun against our noble quintet (who only decide to adopt the titular moniker at the end of the movie). Kang saves most of the superhero action for the extended finale, which sees Young-chun demonstrating his powers of youth and healing (after usurping Yak-sun’s abilities) to a stadium-sized crowd of his followers before being (literally) brought back down to earth. It isn’t Hollywood standard to be sure, but the VFX is very respectable for an Asian production.

Still, the draw of ‘Hi-Five’ is less spectacle than just scrappy exuberance, buoyed by the earnest and warm performances by each of the actors. Nowhere is this better displayed than in a high-speed vehicular chase where our heroes have to outrun two sets of baddies after them atop Sun-nyeo’s yoghurt vehicle powered by Wan-seo’s strength and speed, all set to Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’. That’s exactly the sort of dumb, unpretentious fun that Kang has set out to deliver in ‘Hi-Five’, and we must say that it sticks the landing.

So even though the constant diet of superhero movies may have left some jaded and fatigued, ‘Hi-Five’ revels in being nothing like the typical Marvel or DC mould. It is simply about five ordinary people suddenly granted superhuman strength and who have to summon the best within themselves to face up to one among them who has chosen to use his powers for bad than good – and we aren’t shy to say that because we went in with little expectation, we found ourselves pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable and entertaining it turned out to be. ‘Hi-Five’ indeed!.

Movie Rating:

(More fun than the typical Marvel or DC superhero film, this fantasy of ordinary persons turned superheroes is unpretentiously enjoyable and entertaining)

Review by Gabriel Chong