One Armed Boxer
09-01-2011, 04:57 AM
Im my opinion any new movie by Seung-wan Ryoo is worth a look....this is the guy that directed 'No Blood No Tears', 'Arahan', 'Crying Fist', and 'City of Violence'...and it could be said that no other Korean director has successfully combined powerful stories, gritty action, and memorable characters as consistently as he has during the last 10 years.
Thankfully his latest 'The Unjust' continues this trend. The movies main theme is actually similar to the meaning of 'Sha Po Lang'....the original title of the Wilson Yip & Donnie Yen's 2005 crime drama before it was ridiculously renamed 'Kill Zone' for a western audience...in that it pits 3 men on a collision course with each other, and when they collide, things are going to go straight to hell very quckly.
The three men are excellently acted by Jeong-min Hwang, Seung-beom Ryu, & Hae-jin Yu. Hwang & Ryu where also pitted against each other in 2006's 'Bloody Ties', also well worth a look. The movie wastes no time jumping into the thick of things, as in the opening minutes we learn that the police have been on the hunt for a man responsible for the killing of several children, and after a standoff with the number one suspect, he is shot and killed.
The problem is the only evidence they have to link him to the killings is a compromised blood sample, too difficult to get DNA from, and the press and powers that be are putting pressure on the police to give them a convicted killer. With the main suspect dead and nothing solid to link him to the murder....a complicated plot unfolds when Jeong-min Hwang's character, police captain Choi Cheol-gi, is given the responsibility of finding someone suitable to hang the murder on.
Seung-beom Ryu comes into the picture as a public prosecutor who smells something is not quite right with Hwang's investigation, then throw Hae-jin Yu into the mix as a once gangster now turned property developer, who Hwang turns to when he needs help giving the unlucky scapegoat an extra 'push' to confess to the crime, all overshadowed by an ongoing investigation into Yu's property dealings that all three characters have a hand in, and you have the ingredients for an extremely tense, fast paced, thrill ride of a movie.
The movie is unique in that it gives us no clear one character to root for, all three men leave themselves open for corruption be it in the quest for money, power, or respect....it's not a case of who's the clean character, but a case of which one has the least dirt on them. The layers of lies each man has to construct to keep himself covered gets more and more complicated as the movie goes on, until things get wound so tightly they snap....and everything comes crashing down in a spiral of chaos and people shouting at each other in angry Korean...something I never get tired of listening too!
All in all 'The Unjust' is one of the many movies that made 2010 such an excellent year for Korean cinema, and is right up there with 'I Saw the Devil', 'The Man From Nowhere', & 'No Mercy' (also starring Seung-beom Ryu), highly recommended!
vfpy0rC67mI
Thankfully his latest 'The Unjust' continues this trend. The movies main theme is actually similar to the meaning of 'Sha Po Lang'....the original title of the Wilson Yip & Donnie Yen's 2005 crime drama before it was ridiculously renamed 'Kill Zone' for a western audience...in that it pits 3 men on a collision course with each other, and when they collide, things are going to go straight to hell very quckly.
The three men are excellently acted by Jeong-min Hwang, Seung-beom Ryu, & Hae-jin Yu. Hwang & Ryu where also pitted against each other in 2006's 'Bloody Ties', also well worth a look. The movie wastes no time jumping into the thick of things, as in the opening minutes we learn that the police have been on the hunt for a man responsible for the killing of several children, and after a standoff with the number one suspect, he is shot and killed.
The problem is the only evidence they have to link him to the killings is a compromised blood sample, too difficult to get DNA from, and the press and powers that be are putting pressure on the police to give them a convicted killer. With the main suspect dead and nothing solid to link him to the murder....a complicated plot unfolds when Jeong-min Hwang's character, police captain Choi Cheol-gi, is given the responsibility of finding someone suitable to hang the murder on.
Seung-beom Ryu comes into the picture as a public prosecutor who smells something is not quite right with Hwang's investigation, then throw Hae-jin Yu into the mix as a once gangster now turned property developer, who Hwang turns to when he needs help giving the unlucky scapegoat an extra 'push' to confess to the crime, all overshadowed by an ongoing investigation into Yu's property dealings that all three characters have a hand in, and you have the ingredients for an extremely tense, fast paced, thrill ride of a movie.
The movie is unique in that it gives us no clear one character to root for, all three men leave themselves open for corruption be it in the quest for money, power, or respect....it's not a case of who's the clean character, but a case of which one has the least dirt on them. The layers of lies each man has to construct to keep himself covered gets more and more complicated as the movie goes on, until things get wound so tightly they snap....and everything comes crashing down in a spiral of chaos and people shouting at each other in angry Korean...something I never get tired of listening too!
All in all 'The Unjust' is one of the many movies that made 2010 such an excellent year for Korean cinema, and is right up there with 'I Saw the Devil', 'The Man From Nowhere', & 'No Mercy' (also starring Seung-beom Ryu), highly recommended!
vfpy0rC67mI