Summary
T’Challa, Okoye, and Nakia arrive in Busan disguised as wealthy African businessmen in order to gain entry to the secret casino where Klaue’s vibranium sale is meant to take place. Okoye is wearing a straight-haired wig which is very much to her displeasure. The three arrive by car to a street market where Nakia converses in Korean with a woman manning one of the stands. Nakia explains to the women that she and her friends are big spenders who will throw a lot of money into the casino. The woman, who seemingly knows Nakia from the past, signals to allow the three to enter the casino through a hidden door. Soon after coming inside, T’Challa spots Everett Ross, a CIA agent he had met during the events depicted in Captain America: Civil War. T’Challa immediately suspects that Ross is the American attempting to buy the vibranium from Klaue, perhaps as some kind of sting operation. T’Challa confronts Ross, asking that he and the Wakandans be allowed to bring in Klaue. Ross pushes back, asserting that T’Challa owes him a favor for not revealing T’Challa’s secret identity as the Black Panther.
Before they can resolve the dispute, Klaue and his henchmen enter the casino, setting off the metal detector as they do. Ross and Klaue meet on the casino floor while the Wakandans track Klaue’s henchmen around the casino. Ross shows Klaue a briefcase full of diamonds and Klaue pulls out the vibranium in a paper bag. Before the transaction can be completed, one of Klaue’s men overhears Okoye talking on a hidden microphone, forcing Okoye to fight (and finally throw off her much-hated wig in a man’s face). A massive brawl breaks out between the Wakandans, Ross’s CIA agents, and Klaue’s men. The fight is presented in several uninterrupted tracking shots that follow the action from upper to lower level and back again. In the chaos, Klaue slips out of the casino, and the Wakandans follow in hot pursuit.
Outside, Klaue gets into a car and drives away with several more cars following as an escort. Nakia and Okoye follow them in one car, Shuri remote controlling another car with T’Challa in full panther suit riding on top. The Wakandans chase Klaue through the streets of Busan, avoiding gunfire and taking out cars one by one through acrobatic feats by T’Challa and Okoye. Along the way, Klaue reveals a new weapon in his prosthetic arm, a laser that is effective against vibranium, forcing T’Challa to go on the defensive and disabling both Nakia’s and Shuri’s cars. Nakia and Okoye are left in the middle of the road while T’Challa continues his pursuit, but Ross arrives with his own car and picks them up. T’Challa ultimately forces Klaue’s van to crash and apprehends him. T’Challa berates Klaue for his crimes and threatens to kill him on the spot. Meanwhile, a crowd of Korean civilians has gathered, many taking video on their phones. Before T’Challa can do anything more to Klaue, Ross and the other Wakandans arrive and convince T’Challa to take Klaue and leave the scene before more onlookers arrive.
Later, Klaue sits alone in an interrogation room at a CIA hideout, rambling to himself while Ross and the Wakandans watch through a two way mirror. Ross wants to interrogate Klaue by himself immediately, but Okoye warns T’Challa in Xhosa that Klaue might reveal the truth about Wakanda to Ross. T’Challa reasons that such a story from Klaue will sound delusional to Ross and that interfering with Ross’s interrogation would only arouse suspicion. T’Challa allows Ross to proceed, but Klaue begins telling Ross about Wakanda’s advanced civilization almost immediately. T’Challa and Okoye look worried, but Ross seems unconvinced by the story. Meanwhile, a van pulls up outside the building and Killmonger gets out accompanied by several gunmen. He places an explosive on a wall in a back alley and puts on the African mask from the museum. Back inside, Nakia is looking at security video, including one monitor of the back alley. Killmonger is not present in the video, but Nakia notices a video glitch (similar to the one from the museum) that makes her suspicious. She asks one of the security people where the feed is coming from and is pointed in the direction of the interrogation room. Before she can do anything, Killmonger sets off the explosive and blows open an entrance to the interrogation room. Killmonger and his men storm in with guns blazing, shooting at the CIA agents. Ross takes a bullet for Nakia and T’Challa absorbs the force of a grenade with his panther suit. Killmonger’s men grab Klaue and fall back to their van, T’Challa following them outside. As Killmonger gets back in the van, we see a close-up of a ring he is wearing on a chain around his neck. T’Challa apparently sees this ring but cannot catch up before the van gets away. He returns to the hideout, where Nakia is examining Ross’s wound. She determines that he will die without the aid of Wakanda’s advanced medical technology. T’Challa decides to bring Ross to Wakanda, positing that because he has the power to save Ross’s life he also has an obligation to do so.
T’Challa and his compatriots return to Wakanda with an unconscious Ross on their ship. They immediately take him to Shuri’s lab, where she begins to treat his injury. As he is leaving the lab, T’Challa is confronted by W’Kabi. W’Kabi asks why T’Challa has not returned with Klaue, and T’Challa is forced to admit that he failed to keep Klaue in his custody. W’Kabi becomes angry, saying that he had long been frustrated by T’Chaka’s conservative leadership and that his fears that T’Challa would be an ineffective leader have been confirmed by this turn of events. W’Kabi leaves before T’Challa can respond.
Meanwhile, Killmonger is with his girlfriend and Klaue in an airfield preparing to board a plane. Klaue tells Killmonger not to worry about the failed vibranium sale and promises that he will find another buyer after things have calmed down. Killmonger tells Klaue not to worry about the money and that he knows Klaue will eventually get it for him. He then asks Klaue to drop him off in Wakanda on his way back to South Africa. Klaue is confused, telling Killmonger that going to Wakanda is too dangerous. Suddenly, the two men grow suspicious and pull guns on each other, but Klaue grabs Killmonger’s girlfriend and uses her as a human shield. Klaue demands that Killmonger drop his gun or Klaue will shoot her. Killmonger tells her that everything will be alright before shooting her and Klaue. She is killed instantly, while Klaue is only wounded. Klaue shows Killmonger a brand on his skin, saying that this is what Wakandans do to outsiders. Killmonger takes off his shirt to reveal a series of scars he has made, claiming one is for each person he has killed. Klaue still calls him a fool for wanting to go to Wakanda, but then Killmonger shows him a Wakandan glowing brand on the inside of his lower lip. Klaue laughs at this revelation and Killmonger shoots him again, killing him.
Analysis
The sequence in South Korea helps us to understand the dynamics of the relationships between T’Challa and Ross and Killmonger and Klaue. Though Ross respects T’Challa on some level for his combat abilities and strength of character, he mostly sees T’Challa as an annoyance or an obstacle during this sequence. Ross sees his own mission as much more important than the concerns of what he sees as a backwater “third world” country. Even during the interrogation scene, after T’Challa has provided invaluable help in arresting Klaue, Ross dismisses the Wakandans’ wishes to participate in Klaue’s interrogation. Despite Ross’s best intentions, this pattern of behavior seems to indicate a kind of casual belittling and marginalization even well-meaning white people will commit when they are too focused on their own agendas. Despite this, T’Challa ultimately chooses to bring Ross to Wakanda in order to save his life, potentially jeopardizing Wakanda’s secrecy in the process. This is an important moment in T’Challa’s journey toward breaking away from past tradition. His rationalization for saving Ross, that his ability to help Ross also creates an obligation to do so, echoes the logic of Killmonger and N’Jobu with respect to the plight of the African Diaspora and the use of Wakanda’s technology.
Killmonger and Klaue seem more friendly with each other on the surface, but when the stakes are high it becomes clear that they only care about using each other for their own ends. They work well together, and Killmonger is willing to rescue Klaue at great personal risk, but their conversations throughout the film are almost always based in some promise of potential material gain from their activity (for example: Klaue’s promise that Killmonger will still get his money from the vibranium sale, played by Serkis as a jovial well-wishing comment). Ultimately, they try to kill one another quite literally the moment their objectives come slightly into conflict. Klaue even starts using more coded racist language (“savages”) when he and Killmonger turn on each other, shattering the illusion of their alliance. Both Klaue and Killmonger ultimately see other people as disposable instruments, a fact brutally emphasized when Klaue takes Killmonger’s girlfriend as a human shield before she is shot by Killmonger in cold blood to get to Klaue.
The brief scene back in Wakanda is also important in setting up the next stage of the story. T’Challa’s conversation with W’Kabi brings to the surface a tension that had been previously implied but never expressed. Kaluuya’s performance as W’Kabi had until this point been very emotionally reserved, never betraying his true feelings in face or voice. Here he is angry, revealing a deep dissatisfaction with the leadership of Wakanda stemming from his parents’ death at the hands of Klaue. In a previous section we noted how the common enemy of Klaue covered up many of the internal divisions within Wakanda’s leadership; now with Klaue out of their grasp (and soon to be found dead) there is nothing to keep these divisions from exploding to the surface. This conversation, and W’Kabi’s de facto vote of no confidence in T’Challa’s leadership, foreshadows his choice to side with Killmonger and signals that other Wakandans might be willing to as well.
