We’re just days away from closing out the first quarter of 2023, a three-month period that’s already been jam-packed with big Netflix releases like Shadow and Bone Season 2, as well as new seasons of You and Ginny and Georgia.
As it turns out, one of the biggest Netflix releases of the year so far will come on the final day of the quarter — Murder Mystery 2, which caps off yet another week of new content from the streaming giant ranging from at least one new Korean drama to comedy standup, a new sitcom, and much more — all of which we’ll take a closer look at below.
Kill Boksoon
Personally, the Netflix release I’m most excited for — as an avid consumer of Netflix’s Korean content, like The Glory — is the action-packed Korean crime thriller Kill Boksoon, which is built around a woman who’s both a mother of a teenage daughter and a hired killer with a 100% success rate.
In the film, coming on March 31, Boksoon is a seasoned professional killer, who actually works at an agency that hires out its assassins for jobs. Long story short, when it’s time to renew her contract with the agency, she decides to retire and put it all behind her so she can focus on fixing her relationship with her daughter. Before notifying the agency of her decision, however, she’s on one last assignment, discovers a secret, and decides to break the agency’s rules because of it.
That leads to, like the title suggests, not only her agency but everyone in the hitman industry angling to do the same thing: Kill Boksoon.
Murder Mystery 2 + more new Netflix releases
Moving right along, we’re now just days away from Netflix’s forthcoming sequel to its 2019 hit Murder Mystery — starring, once again, Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler.
The latter’s star wattage has proven to be an improbably resilient force on Netflix, with his presence bringing significant viewership to Netflix movies like Hustle as well as the Murder Mystery franchise (the sequel to which hits Netflix on March 31).
The official logline for the new film:
“Now full-time detectives struggling to get their private eye agency off the ground, Nick and Audrey Spitz find themselves at the center of an international abduction when their friend the Maharaja is kidnapped at his own lavish wedding.”
When we last caught up with Sandler’s and Aniston’s Nick and Audrey Spitz, they had just solved the murder of billionaire Malcolm Quince (Terence Stamp) and were celebrating aboard the Orient Express. Now, their reputation as amateur detectives precedes them, in this sequel directed by Jeremy Garelick.
Three more titles to check out
Unstable: In this next new Netflix release, Rob Lowe plays an eccentric and narcissistic biotech entrepreneur who sets out to save his company while also salvaging the relationship with his estranged son … who is attempting the impossible: Getting out from under the shadow of his bigger-than-life famous father.
“I’ve been really lucky from Austin Powers to Tommy Boy to Parks and Recreation and The Grinder,” Lowe said in an interview included with Netflix’s press material for the show. “I’ve played some really extraordinary, kinetic roles … (My character) is a genius and he is also an idiot. He is a narcissist. And he is also so bighearted and loving and kind, and he can’t figure out how to tie his own shoes. Yet he is a leader of people, so there’s a lot of dichotomy to an archetype that could easily be one-dimensional.” Release date: March 30.
Mae Martin: SAP: In need of some new laughs from the streamer? Netflix has you covered with a new standup special from Mae Martin, coming on Tuesday. “From a mythical moose encounter to the gender spectrum in Beauty and the Beast, Mae Martin reflects on a world off its axis in this comedy special. Release date: March 28.
Emergency: NYC: The 8-episode Netflix docuseries Emergency: NYC, which comes from the creators of Netflix’s Lenox Hill, introduces viewers to doctors, nurses, and EMTs across several hospitals in Manhattan, Queens, and Long Island — including at Lenox Hill Downtown, Lenox Hill Hospital, North Shore University Hospital, Cohen Children’s Medical Center and the SkyHealth helicopter service in Long Island.
In the corridors and ERs of these hospitals and others like them, a thousand dramas unfold every day — including lives lost and saved, miracles performed, and vigils kept. “At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City,” Netflix explains about this new docuseries, “hospitals were overwhelmed by an influx of patients they oftentimes didn’t even have room for.
“As COVID-related emergencies lessened, however, trauma doctors were faced with a different wave of patients: Those whose conditions worsened while they were stuck at home, and those who became victims of violent crimes, which increased after COVID restrictions were lifted.” Release date: March 29.
