divemaster13
Member: Rank 4
Time for Monday's review! Let's go back to Korea for this week's movie. No Blood, No Tears (2002).
Previous reviews:
2/13: A Tale of Two Sisters
2/20: Comrades, Almost a Love Story
2/27: A Chinese Tall Story
3/6: The Mystery of Rampo
3/9: Clean
3/13: The Bride with White Hair
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No Blood No Tears (2002)
Directed by Seung-wan Ryoo
Starring Do-yeon Jeon, Hye-yeong Lee, and Jae-yeong Jeong
In Korean with English subtitles
Film: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
Wow, this action/comedy gangster/heist flick really delivers the goods! Mix several parts Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, a dash of Go, a smidgen of True Romance, and fights as brutal as Fight Club (but with women giving and taking beatings as much or moreso than the men) -- put it all through the filter of a Korean gangster film and you have No Blood, No Tears, a tour de force by director Seung-wan Ryoo (Die Bad; Arahan; Crying Fist).
The plot is complex. But not so that you can't follow what is going on as it happens. Don’t plan on being two jumps ahead, however. Just let the movie come to you and you will be rewarded.
The whole issue of the heist and most of the fights (which are pretty brutal) don't really come into play until the second half of the film, but there is plenty of good stuff in the first half to get you there. So if you are tired of the same old Hollywood plots, fights, and chases, do yourself a favor and seek this film out.
The story is centered around two good female leads. Hye-yeong Lee plays Kyeong-seon, who owes the local neighborhood loan shark a lot of money. She’s got a certain past and tends to solve problems by a beer bottle across the head or a kick to the gut. Then we have Su-ji (played by the always awesome Do-yeon Jeon)--the frequently smacked around moll of a low-level gangster. A chance encounter puts the girls together and gets the wheels turning on how they can make off with a whole lot of the high-level gangster’s money.
There are double crosses, triple crosses, and lots of surprises along the way. A multitude of other characters play important roles. Inept police detectives; idiotic street punks who switch back and forth from being informants for the police and trying to get in on the goods themselves; loan collectors who don’t know if they should start taking off fingers or sit down and eat lunch with the debtor. Perhaps most impressive is a gangster tough (credited as “Silent Man”) played by famed martial arts action director Doo-hong Jung. He has a great fight scene where he really gets to strut his stuff.
Plus, the closing credits song rocks!
As I mentioned above, the plot can lose you if you are not paying attention. There are a lot of characters, and most are hiding their intentions. So if you are one of those folks who like to watch a movie while folding laundry, or working a crossword puzzle, or, God forbid, surfing the internet or checking FaceBook, I advise you to put all that crap down so you can better enjoy this one.
Also, one of the things I tend to forget until another viewing is just how funny this movie is. The verbal sparring, especially in the inventively profane ways that the gangsters insult each other (and their victims) just cracks me up. I’m not sure if it’s mainly in the English translation or if the original Korean is also as cleverly and wittingly profane, but whichever it is, it works very well here.
A couple of small demerits--the film is a little long, the street punks are cartoonish in their idiocy, and the hotel shoot-out scene with three distinct warring groups is so reminiscent of the one in True Romance that the scene easily passes the line of “homage” to “blatant rip-off” (even copying the girl crawling away amidst feathers flying). But I forgive it.
The Korean disc is R0 (although it says R3 on the case). The look of the film and the subtitling were very good. There is also an R1 release as well, but I wouldn’t trust Amazon for it. Most of the reviews under No Blood, No Tears appear to be for a completely different movie (Guns & Talks, which I also liked a lot, but is a completely different film). Plus, whoever did the artwork for Amazon obviously never saw the movie, as the lead lady is prominently brandishing a handgun. There are no handguns in this movie used by the ladies or the gangsters at all--only a few brought to the hotel scene by the cops.
Previous reviews:
2/13: A Tale of Two Sisters
2/20: Comrades, Almost a Love Story
2/27: A Chinese Tall Story
3/6: The Mystery of Rampo
3/9: Clean
3/13: The Bride with White Hair
------------------------------------------------
No Blood No Tears (2002)
Directed by Seung-wan Ryoo
Starring Do-yeon Jeon, Hye-yeong Lee, and Jae-yeong Jeong
In Korean with English subtitles
Film: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
Wow, this action/comedy gangster/heist flick really delivers the goods! Mix several parts Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, a dash of Go, a smidgen of True Romance, and fights as brutal as Fight Club (but with women giving and taking beatings as much or moreso than the men) -- put it all through the filter of a Korean gangster film and you have No Blood, No Tears, a tour de force by director Seung-wan Ryoo (Die Bad; Arahan; Crying Fist).
The plot is complex. But not so that you can't follow what is going on as it happens. Don’t plan on being two jumps ahead, however. Just let the movie come to you and you will be rewarded.
The whole issue of the heist and most of the fights (which are pretty brutal) don't really come into play until the second half of the film, but there is plenty of good stuff in the first half to get you there. So if you are tired of the same old Hollywood plots, fights, and chases, do yourself a favor and seek this film out.
The story is centered around two good female leads. Hye-yeong Lee plays Kyeong-seon, who owes the local neighborhood loan shark a lot of money. She’s got a certain past and tends to solve problems by a beer bottle across the head or a kick to the gut. Then we have Su-ji (played by the always awesome Do-yeon Jeon)--the frequently smacked around moll of a low-level gangster. A chance encounter puts the girls together and gets the wheels turning on how they can make off with a whole lot of the high-level gangster’s money.
There are double crosses, triple crosses, and lots of surprises along the way. A multitude of other characters play important roles. Inept police detectives; idiotic street punks who switch back and forth from being informants for the police and trying to get in on the goods themselves; loan collectors who don’t know if they should start taking off fingers or sit down and eat lunch with the debtor. Perhaps most impressive is a gangster tough (credited as “Silent Man”) played by famed martial arts action director Doo-hong Jung. He has a great fight scene where he really gets to strut his stuff.
Plus, the closing credits song rocks!
As I mentioned above, the plot can lose you if you are not paying attention. There are a lot of characters, and most are hiding their intentions. So if you are one of those folks who like to watch a movie while folding laundry, or working a crossword puzzle, or, God forbid, surfing the internet or checking FaceBook, I advise you to put all that crap down so you can better enjoy this one.
Also, one of the things I tend to forget until another viewing is just how funny this movie is. The verbal sparring, especially in the inventively profane ways that the gangsters insult each other (and their victims) just cracks me up. I’m not sure if it’s mainly in the English translation or if the original Korean is also as cleverly and wittingly profane, but whichever it is, it works very well here.
A couple of small demerits--the film is a little long, the street punks are cartoonish in their idiocy, and the hotel shoot-out scene with three distinct warring groups is so reminiscent of the one in True Romance that the scene easily passes the line of “homage” to “blatant rip-off” (even copying the girl crawling away amidst feathers flying). But I forgive it.
The Korean disc is R0 (although it says R3 on the case). The look of the film and the subtitling were very good. There is also an R1 release as well, but I wouldn’t trust Amazon for it. Most of the reviews under No Blood, No Tears appear to be for a completely different movie (Guns & Talks, which I also liked a lot, but is a completely different film). Plus, whoever did the artwork for Amazon obviously never saw the movie, as the lead lady is prominently brandishing a handgun. There are no handguns in this movie used by the ladies or the gangsters at all--only a few brought to the hotel scene by the cops.
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