''Secret Zoo'' (

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

: 해치지않아, lit. ''I Don't Bully You'') is a 2020

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

n comedy film directed by Son Jae-gon, starring

Ahn Jae-hong Ahn Jae-hong (, December 31, 1891 – March 1, 1965) was a Korean activist, politician, and journalist who participated in the Korean independence movement The Korean independence movement was a military and diplomatic campaign to achieve t ...

, Kang So-ra,

Park Yeong-gyu Park Yeong-gyu (born 28 October 1953) is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his roles in '' Attack the Gas Station'', in which he plays the owner of the titular gas station, and '' Break Out'', in which he plays a corrupt politician. F ...

, Kim Sung-oh and

Jeon Yeo-been Jeon Yeo-been (; born Jeon Bo-young on July 26, 1989) is a South Korean actress. Jeon rose to prominence for her performance in the independent film ''After My Death'' (2018) which earned her the Actress of the Year Award at the 22nd Busan Inte ...

. Based on the

webtoon Webtoons (), are a type of digital comic that originated in South Korea usually meant to be read on smartphones. While webtoons were mostly unknown outside of Korea during their inception, there has been a surge in popularity internationally t ...

''I Don't Bully You'' by Hun, it was released on January 15, 2020 in South Korea and on January 24 in the United States.

Plot

Stuck in a dead-end temp position at a renowned law firm, attorney-at-law Tae Soo (

Ahn Jae-Hong Ahn Jae-hong (, December 31, 1891 – March 1, 1965) was a Korean activist, politician, and journalist who participated in the Korean independence movement The Korean independence movement was a military and diplomatic campaign to achieve t ...

) dreams of one day landing a permanent position there. One day, he is given a special job to revitalize a failing zoo. The problem is, there are no animals. Moreover, he has exactly 3 months to do so. With the zookeepers’ help, he comes up with a brilliant idea of having the zookeepers dress up as animals. One by one, the zookeepers put on animal suits and masks and become polar bears, tigers, gorillas, and sloths. The new zoo opens and Tae Soo’s polar bear goes viral when a video of him drinking a can of coke hits the internet. Thanks to everyone’s help, the zoo with fake animals is a massive hit and Tae Soo can now go back to the law firm with a permanent job. But before he leaves the zoo, he finds out what his law firm was planning with the zoo. Can Tae Soo come up with another brilliant idea to save not only himself but the zookeepers and the zoo?

Cast

as Kang Tae-soo * Kang So-ra as Han So-won *

as Director Seo * Kim Sung-oh as Kim Gun-wook *

as Kim Hae-kyung *

Park Hyuk-kwon Park Hyuk-kwon (born July 11, 1971) is a South Korean actor. Park began his acting career in 1993 as a member of the theater troupe Sanulrim. He later became a well-regarded supporting actor in films such as '' Chaw'' (2009) and ''Secret Reunion ...

as President Hwang * Seo Hyeon-woo as Secretary Oh * Jang Seung-jo as Sungmin * Park Hyung-soo as Barrister Song * Kim Heung-rae as Black Nose * Lee Hyun-wook as Min Chul-hyun * Han Ye-ri as Min Chae-ryung * Kim Gi-cheon as Representative Go * Song Duk-ho as Person in audience * Kim Hyun as Dismissed employee

Production

Principal photography began on October 8, 2018 and filming was completed on January 19, 2019.

Reception

Box office

The film debuted in first place during its opening weekend. However, ticket sales decreased by 77% in its second week.

Critical response

''Secret Zoo'' holds approval rating on review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, based on reviews. Michael Rechtshaffen of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' said that "resistance might not be futile, but to deny oneself the amiably goofy charms of South Korea's ''Secret Zoo'', an inspired family comedy that gives fresh meaning to faux fur, would be a real shame." For Panos Kotzathanasis of HanCinema, "''Secret Zoo'' is a film that aims at providing fun for its audience, and in that regard, it succeeds to the fullest.

References

External links

* * {{hancinema film, Secret_Zoo 2020 films 2020s Korean-language films 2020 comedy films South Korean comedy films Films about animals Films based on South Korean webtoons Films set in zoos