This is a beautiful looking film, and if you're a fan of 80's and 90's American gangster movie aesthetics - think Mann, Scorsese and Coppola - this is probably going to provide you with a couple of interior design ideas. The narrative is straight-forward/thin - obedient enforcer Sun-Woo (Byung-hun Lee) disobeys orders, is horribly punished, and then goes on a killing fest. So far so typically ultra-violence - if the film gets a place in movie history it'll be for having the most protracted death scene in a movie, ever - it even manages to whip the ending of House of Flying Daggers, which is no mean feat.
Other reasons to watch include Byung-hun Lee taking most of his clothes off and Gi-yeong Lee as a rival gang leader with a penchant for slaughter houses - the man manages to make a bucket hat look menacing.
that there's a classy poster though, I'd go see just on that.
Posted by: Gilbert | October 04, 2007 at 04:09 PM
Great poster, and a wise choice to feature Byung-hun Lee, rather than unlikely femme fatale Shin Min-a, a woman with a rubbish taste in men, classical music and lamps. There is a pretty funny disco scene though, with her and her boyfriend getting down, while Byung-hun looks on muttering about young folks.
Posted by: Josie Fraser | October 04, 2007 at 05:35 PM
I like the opening club montage in Dead or Alive. Breathless it is. Hard to get a disco/club scene wrong.
Posted by: Gilbert | October 09, 2007 at 03:11 PM