The Swindlers is a 2018 film from South Korea, directed by Jang Chang-won.
The opening scenes are set in 2008. A con artist, Jang Doo-chil, has absconded with an enormous fortune that he stole in a Ponzi scheme. Being a wanted man, he needs fake papers to get out of the country. So he goes to one Hwang Yoo-seok, a master forger. Yoo-seok's son Hwang Ji-sung (Hyun Bin) is surprised to see his dad forging a passport, but Yoo-seok explains that it's One Last Job and then he'll retire for good.
Naturally, Yoo-seok is murdered right after he hands over the forged passport, with Jang the crook fleeing the country for China.
Time skip eight years. The official story is that Jang died five years ago in China, and there's an autopsy report and everything, but rumors are out there that Jang is still alive. A crooked but ambitious prosecutor, Park Hee-soo, seeks to arrest Jang—not because Jang is a criminal, because Hee-soo is ok with that, but because Jang knows a lot of embarrassing stuff that could implicate Korean bigwigs, including Park's patron, Councilor Sung, who is running for President. Park winds up joining forces with Ji-sung, who is bent on revenge. Together, and with the help of some of Ji-sung's other con artist friends, the group sets out to take Jang Doo-chil down.
Tropes:
- And the Adventure Continues: The film ends with the gang reunited after short prison stints. Having defeated everyone except Jang Doo-chil who is still at large, the others show Ji-sung the giant pile of money they stole from Doo-chil, and suggest they use it to go after him.
- Car Cushion: In the opening scene a man named Tae-dong throws himself out a window to his death after finding out that Jang was a thief; he lands on a parked car, smashing it.
- Coincidental Broadcast: Choon-ja flips on the TV in Kang's suite at precisely 8 pm in time for the news, and naturally, they lead with the story of Jang Doo-chil's bribe list.
- The Con: Many. The first con is shown when Choon-ja flashes her cleavage to distract a jeweler which allows her to switch out a real necklace with a fake. That turns out to not have worked, as it was actually a sting and two cops pop up immediately to arrest her. But that was the actual con, as the two cops weren't actually cops, but Choon-ja's partners in crime, Seok-dong and Kang-suk.
- Corrupt Politician: It seems that Jang bribed a goodly chunk of the South Korean government, right up to Councilor Sung, who took a bribe to help Jang escape Korea and who hopes to be president. That's why Prosecutor Park goes after Jang, to eliminate a possible threat to his crooked bosses.
- Crocodile Tears: Councilor Sung works up some fake tears about the state of Korean youth while declaring his candidacy for president. His flunkies compliment him on his acting skills when he gets back.
- Discreet Drink Disposal: Choon-ja attempts to do this when at the bar with Kang; she tosses her drinks in a spittoon. But when Kang starts to leave too early—she's stalling him so the others can put cameras in his room—she has to start drinking for real.
- Distant Prologue: The opening scenes, where Yoo-seok forges the passport after the Ponzi scheme collapses, take place eight years before a Time Skip to the rest of the story.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Choon-ja uses this at the jewelry store, opening her blouse to distract the jeweler while supposedly checking how the necklace looks on her. That turns out to be faked, but the Clothing Damage she suffers moments later when she's arrested actually does distract him from the real theft.
- Dramatic Thunder: It's standard issue dramatic thunder and lightning for the scene in which Yoo-seok hands over the passport to Jang, and is promptly murdered.
- Faking the Dead: Jang was reported to have died in China and a death certificate and autopsy were produced. Naturally, he's still alive.
- Follow That Car: So says Choon-ja when she hops into a taxi to follow the other taxi, the one that took away Kang for a clandestine meeting with Jang Doo-chil.
- Glasses Pull: A frustrated Park Hee-soo pulls off his glasses after losing a foot race to catch Jang.
- Latex Perfection: Ji-sung dons a latex mask to disguise himself as an old man to fool Lee Kang-seok. At the end he is revealed to have also used a mask to impersonate Jang in order to trap Hee-soo.
- Lonely Funeral: Ji-sung is the only mourner at his father's funeral.
- MacGuffin: The highly incriminating ledger of Jang Doo-chil's bribes, which people start searching for in the second half of the film.
- One Last Job: Yoo-seok is a dead man walking after telling Ji-sung that after this one last job, forging the passport, he'll retire from criminality forever.
- Percussive Pickpocket: How Choon-ja steals a wallet from Kwak Seung-gun, by bumping into him. It's all part of a scheme wherein they gain his trust after he accuses her of lifting his wallet, only for a hotel clerk to produce said wallet after they turned it in.
- Please Wake Up: A panicking Ji-sung screams "Dad, wake up!" at the crime scene where his father has been discovered, supposedly having hanged himself, but really having been murdered.
- Ponzi: Jang Doo-chil went on the lam in 2008 after having stolen hundreds of billions of won (that is, hundreds of millions of dollars) in a Ponzi scheme.
- The Reveal: It's a movie about con artists and cons, so it has to have some.
- It was Park Hee-soo who was responsible for the murder of Ji-sung's father.
- And Ji-sung knew this all along, and his plot was not to kill Jang, but to take down Park.
- And the others in their little squad of con artists were all in on it from the start with Ji-sung, all having lost loved ones in the Ponzi scheme.
- Rooftop Confrontation: Hee-soo nearly throws Ji-sung off a roof before pulling him back and revealing his true purpose, namely, to team up and take down Jang.
- Searching the Stalls: Kang-seok does this when his mark Chang-sik never comes out of the bathroom. The stalls are empty. It turns out that "Chang-sik" was actually Ji-sung, and he simply took his Latex Perfection mask off and strolled right past Kang-seok.
- Split-Screen Phone Call: How it's revealed to the audience, when Hee-soo is talking to Jang, that Jang is letting Councilor Sung listen in on the phone call.
- Stealing from Thieves: Ji-sung's habit as a con artist is to steal from other con artists and thieves. He tricks Lee Kang-seok into such a scam, in which Kang-seok thinks he is scamming Ji-sung but winds up giving $100,000 to Ji-sung.
