Sumith Prasad
Directed by Lee Myung-hoon, Netflix’s South Korean film ‘Mission: Cross’ ends with Park Kang-mu and Kang Mi-seon’s efforts to stop General Park from transferring illegal funds to her and her accomplices’ accounts. The husband and wife unite to bring the mercenary down, irrespective of the questions that arise when the latter learns about the former’s past. Park, who is known as Jang Hee-ju among her former colleagues, tries to kill her adversaries one after the other as she lays her hands on three and a half trillion won she generated from the MND, forcing Kang-mu to go rogue one more time! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Mission: Cross Plot Synopsis
Park Kang-mu is a housemaker married to Kang Mi-seon, a police detective working in Seoul, South Korea. Even though their married life is not perfect, both tolerate their partner because the alternate options can be even worse. Their lives take a turn when Kang-mu meets Jang Hee-ju, who is chased by a few men. The housemaker rescues the woman and learns that she is pregnant with Kim Jung-san’s baby. Hee-ju is terrified about what happened to her husband, only for her friend to step up to help her. Their meeting is witnessed by the colleagues of Mi-seon, who suspects that Kang-mu is having an extramarital affair.
Meanwhile, Mi-seon is investigating a murder attempt on a woman named Baek Seon-u, who gets shot by an unknown individual at Dongbu Commerce, a trading company. Since the victim is still unconscious, the detective fails to find out who tried to kill her. While tracing the movements of Seon-u, the cop realizes that the former has hidden a flash drive, which was later picked up by the head of Dongbu Commerce. After meeting Hee-ju, Kang-mu recollects his past. Six years ago, he served as the captain of the Korea Defense Intelligence Command. He joined Geum-seok and left for Vladivostok, Russia, to stop a ship’s departure to North Korea with high-end weapons.
Hee-ju and her husband, Jung-san, were Kang-mu’s colleagues at the time. The mission in Russia ended in failure as Geum-seok was killed, and the captain was forced to reveal the passcode necessary to start the ship’s sail. Since the entire operation was carried out without the authorization of Kang-mu’s superiors, he was asked to leave the force and live as a civilian. As he and Hee-ju try to find Jung-san, they learn from an unnamed man that their loved one was abducted by General Park, a leading figure in the military contracting industry, and trapped at Hope Education Center, the military’s torture chamber.
Kang-mu and Hee-ju rescue Jung-san from the torture center. After getting admitted to a hospital, the intelligence agent reveals to his former captain that the latter should find a flash drive he had hidden in his house. At the same time, Mi-seon goes through the security footage featuring Jung-san’s abduction, only to see Hee-ju at the crime scene. She goes to the abducted official’s house and encounters General Park’s men. A fight ensues between the two, and she gets captured by the mercenary’s group. However, the detective manages to transfer the contents of Jung-san’s flash drive to the clone of Kang-mu’s phone before she is taken to the torture center. After learning the flash drive’s location, General Park ensures that Jung-san is killed.
What is in Jung-san’s Flash Drive?
The unauthorized operation in Vladivostok was a turning point in Jung-san’s life. Due to the mission, he not only lost his colleague Geum-seok but also had to bid adieu to his captain Kang-mu, who lost his job for leading the strike without the approval of his superiors. The aftermath of the operation made the intelligence agent dive into the specifics of the same, only for him to discover that South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense had signed a weapons contract for the transfer of Russian aerospace technology. The deal was worth three and a half trillion South Korean won, which is currently equal to around $2.5 billion.
The unholy relationship between South Korea and Russia was first discovered by Geum-seok, who found that the ship from Vladivostok would reach his country rather than North Korea, as his team had initially learned. General Park brokered the weapons contract. The catch was that the deal was completely fake, as it was created for the military contracting giant and her accomplices to earn three and a half trillion won procured as part of the deal. Since the parties involved didn’t completely trust the mercenary, the head of the Defense Counterintelligence Command dealt with the funds.
Jung-san took advantage of this opportunity to hack into the Defense Counterintelligence Command’s systems and freeze the funds with the help of his team, including Baek Seon-u. He then buried the accounts and transferred their details to a flash drive, which he eventually hid in his house.
How Did Hee-ju Become General Park? Who Are Her Accomplices?
There are two theories regarding Hee-ju’s transformation into General Park. She might have created the identity of the mercenary even before the operation in Vladivostok, especially considering that Kang-mu saw her sign at the port. Her job at the Korea Defense Intelligence Command could have been a cover she relied on to hide her deals and actions as a mercenary. If that was the case, the shipment from Vladivostok might have been brokered by her for South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense. Since the job allowed her to keep a close eye on the developments in the military contracting realm, this possibility cannot be completely ruled out.
If Hee-ju hadn’t become General Park before the mission in Vladivostok, she must have resigned from her position to become a mercenary. During the Russian operation, her colleague Geum-seok revealed that the shipment would head to their country, likely convincing Hee-ju that there was something beyond their pay grade in the works at the Ministry of National Defense. Before Jung-san, she might have learned about the deals her nation had been making with Russia, but only then did she likely realize that there was an opportunity present to make an enormous amount of money. She must have utilized her experiences and learnings as an intelligence agent to start brokering weapons contracts and become General Park.
Hee-ju/General Park’s accomplices include some of the most influential commanders in South Korea, starting with the head of the Defense Counterintelligence Command, who dealt with the fund approved for the fake weapons contract. The others can be other South Korean officials who assume offices at the top of chains of command. Since she tries to transfer the money to European countries and her deal involves Russia, influential figures from these nations can also be part of her group.
Why Does Hee-ju Lie to Kang-mu?
After Jung-san froze the accounts with Hee-ju’s money, buried them, and transferred their details to a flash drive, he was abducted by her men. As General Park, she tortured him as much as she could to make him reveal the details of the accounts. However, as a committed servant of his country, he remained silent about the matter. That was when she realized that she had to be clever about the predicament. Hee-ju understood that Jung-san would only reveal the details of the accounts to someone he trusted, which led her to Kang-mu. Since her former captain is another dedicated servant of South Korea, she cannot buy his assistance with money.
Thus, Hee-ju makes a fake story about her life to trick Kang-mu into helping her. She tells him that she is married to Jung-san and presents herself as pregnant to garner the housemaker’s sympathy. Under the impression that two of his former colleagues are suffering, with their lives in danger, Kang-mu decides to help Hee-ju. The mercenary cannot casually lead her former superior to Jung-san since her fake narrative will fall when they meet under ordinary circumstances. To prevent this from happening, she plots a rescue with the help of her own people. Her right-hand man appears before her and Kang-mu as the unnamed man with the location of the abducted intelligence agent.
After Jung-san’s rescue, he reveals the location of his flash drive to Kang-mu. He then adds that Hee-ju is not his wife and that she left the Korea Defense Intelligence Command right after the captain was asked to depart from the force. This revelation helps Kang-mu realize that Hee-ju is General Park. However, by then, the mercenary finds the details of the frozen money and starts to transfer the procured funds to her accounts.
Mission: Cross Ending: Does General Park/Hee-ju Transfer the Funds? What Happens to Her?
By the time Kang-mu and Mi-seon learn who General Park is, the military takes over the case, forcing the husband and wife to embark on an unauthorized mission. The former intelligence agent’s experiences turn out to be crucial as he leads the detective to an underground bunker located below Namsan Mountain, where Park’s headquarters is located. The detective and former agent get into the bunker and kill the mercenary’s soldiers one after the other. They then take control of the system that transfers the funds to accounts in European countries. Before the transfer is complete, they crash the system.
Park then keeps the hard drives that contain the details of the funds and the European accounts in a suitcase and attempts to escape. Kang-mu and Mi-seon stop her, only for the mercenary to offer the husband and wife a share of her money to leave her unharmed. The former agent rejects the offer because he is not a traitor and doesn’t want the money stained by Jung-san’s blood. However, he decides against killing Park because he may want her to deal with the consequences of her actions. Kang-mu hands over the mercenary and her suitcase to military officials, who seemingly arrest her.
Even though a large part of the funds get transferred to Park’s European accounts, the military should be able to locate and retrieve the money easily, especially considering that it is part of the country’s defense budget. After her arrest, the mercenary likely ends up in prison to rot for the crimes she committed, which include killing Jung-san, the head of the Defense Counterintelligence Command, and many more.
Do Kang-mu and Mi-seon Break Up or Stay Together
Kang-mu and Mi-seon decide to stay together. The former intelligence agent and the police detective have thought about breaking up. Still, they never proceed with the same because they are unsure about the people they will meet after parting ways with each other. Both of them have learned to tolerate each other’s quirks and way of life, which makes a peaceful, uneventful existence possible. They don’t have the energy to deal with dramas that are present in the relationships of people around them, which convinces them to remain together.
When Mi-seon learns that Kang-mu was an intelligence agent in the past, her outlook toward him changes. Rather than breaking up with him after he lied to her, she starts to respect him and admire his courage. This change affects their relationship positively. Since Kang-mu captures a national threat and helps the military retrieve three and a half trillion won, the law enforcement division of the country takes him back on duty. He starts to work as a cop or agent with his wife to continue the success their union has resulted once in the case of Park. Since they work and spend ample time together, the husband and wife are expected to cherish their togetherness in the coming years.
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