Open City 무방비 도시 written and directed by Lee Sang-gi (이상기) [2007]
25 April 2008A slick looking, but overall mediocre crime drama involving gangs of ruthless pickpockets, though seemingly no other type of criminals. And if this is what modern pickpockets are like, they might as well just kill you instead of maiming you! Brutal, makes me not want to go to Korea!! Not too impressive overall, damn I wish Korea would learn screenwriting, because they sure have production value down.
This is the story of a regional Crime Squad led by veteran detective Cho Day Young [Kim Myeong-min (김명민) Kim Myeong-min (김명민)] who is forced to oversee the investigation of an evil pickpocket ring, let by the beautiful Paik Jang mi [Son Ye-jin (손예진)] who have recently been terrorizing Tokyo, and stabbing anyone who tried to stop the robberies. Cho does not want to investigate pickpocketing because of something in his past, but he is forced too. When Jang mi is attacked by a rival pickpocket squad, Day-young just happens to be there, and saves her and beats up the crooks, leading them to an inevitable showdown.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILER….
Jang mi starts a new team in Korea, and starts moving into other territories and wants to take over, leading Day-young to start investigating her. Of course sparks fly between the two, and they even eventually have sex, and Jang-mi realizes that the woman she calls her aunt Kang Man-ok (Kim Hae-sook (김해숙)], who helped train her when her mother was killed is in actuality Dae-young’s mother, so she sets up a plot to get the old women back in the game and set her up to get caught by her son, so she can make her clean get away.
Things of course go bad, and Jang-mi’s knife man stabs Dae-yeong and his mother sees it and jumps in the way and is killed. The knife man and the rest of the team is also taken down, and the wounded Dae-yeong heads to the harbor where he knows Jang-mi will be leaving in a yaught and ends up shooting her in the head as she tries to get away, even though he loves her.
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A mediocre at best film. It looks good, but if pickpockets have gotten this evil I don’t want to go to Tokyo or Korea.