Guns, knives, torture, revenge, pain, death... and love. You can't beat Korean cinema when it comes to belching blood right from the heart. Aiming to top Oldboy's overkill brutality, writer/ director Ji-woon Kim ditches the superb, measured chills of A Tale Of Two Sisters in favour of slicked-up ultra-violence.
Assigned to watchdog the squeeze of his crime-lord boss, ice-man enforcer Sun-woo (Byung-hun Lee) suddenly finds a shot of warmth pulsing through his veins. Big mistake. Slashed with a quirky black grin, Kim's movie gathers hardcore momentum as Sun-woo ships and dishes sensational levels of pain. He's battered, strung-up, crippled, buried alive, then recovers for face-smashing, bullet-blasting revenge. By now, though, Kim has long run out of ideas, no matter how much carnage he heroically shovels into the gaping plot holes.
NO VERDICT
