It has been too long since I watched a Korean film, as I had been seeing some crap, but this film makes up for it. I have actually been a fan of Kim Jee Woon’s films for a while, I loved a Tale of Two Sisters and The Foul King, and like those films this film is beautiful and very well done. This film seems similar too Old Boy in feel, though the story is very different, but I enjoyed this film almost as much. An excellent and dark film of revenge in the Korean Mafia. Lee Byung Heon is excellent in his role, and the script is tight and very well done. It really flows, and is perfectly done from the start too the end.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….

The film starts with a black and white image of a willow tree blowing in the wind, and it slowly becomes color as a voice over tells the story of a disciple talking to a master about if it is the wind or the branches that move, but the master says it is the heart and mind. Then we see Sun Woo (Lee Byung Heon) a perfect mob enforcer, working for the last 7 years for his gangster boss (Kim Young Cheol), doing everything perfectly, and is now managing an upscale bar called La Dolce Vita in an upscale hotel. He takes care of a problem with a rival gangs mens in the lower level club, instead of the insolent man who is supposed to be taking care of it, and the boss asks him to look after his mistress (Shin Min ah) while he is out of town for 3 days, and to find out if she is cheating on him, and if she is to kill her and the man. Sun Woo does catch her being unfaithful, but something about her made him begin to melt, and instead of killing them both, he lets the man go on the condition that they never see each other again. Meanwhile he has also pissed off the lower level club manager and the other gangster boss to no end, and he is taken and beaten by the other gangster boss, and then handed over to his own boss and his men, who beat him and want him to admit his mistakes, but he refuses and they bury him alive, but he crawls out, and they are waiting for him. Still they want him to submit, but instead he escapes, fighting his way through countless men, and getting help from one of his old minions. He gets guns from some men connected to Russians, and kills them, sending the brother of one of the men after him. First he kills the other mafia boss, but not before he is stabbed in the stomach with an ice pick, though he doesn’t even bother bandaging the wound before he goes for his own boss. he shoots his way into a big meeting, and without answering his boss as to why, or his boss answering him, he ends up killing him, but the other boss’s men show up and kill everyone else, he manages to kill most of them, but then the brother shows up and kills the rest of them except him. He tries to call the mistress, but drops the phone, then the brother kills him, and he tells another story of the disciple, where the disciple woke up crying, and said he had a wonderful dream, but he was crying because it could never come true, and then we see Sun Woo watching the mistress as she plays her cello, and he actually loves the music and she smiles at him and he smiles back, and we see what caused this whole thing, only a little thing, but you can’t take back time.

Wow. This film is amazing, and Kim Jee Woon has really made an impression on me, I can’t wait for his next film because he just keeps getting better and better. And it seems only Korean’s can do these dark revenge film so amazingly well.