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86 out of 113 people found the following comment useful :-
Chandler meets Woo in a Grind House, 6 August 2005
9/10
Author: genrebusters from United States

I could sit here and start this review off any number of ways to make this film sound ultra important. I could say, once in a great while a film comes along, blah, blah. Or, Only a select few films ever have reached this, blah, blah. Or I could say, if you see one movie this year, blah, blah. You know the drill. These are the opening sentences the big-boy critics use when they really want you to see a flick and when they want a particular review to really stand out. Well, films that deserve this kind of "special" praise really do only come around once in a great while. Unbelievably, I have seen two in only six months time. The first was what I like to call the first real 21st Century film, and that was Oldboy. And the second film of this status also comes from Korea, believe it or not, and it is Bittersweet Life.

Bittersweet Life is probably one of the most simple, most streamlined modern films I have ever seen. It is lean, mean, and like its lead male, a damn ruthless fighting machine. The film beats along with its Raymond Chandler-like screenplay with all the jazz and style of early 90's John Woo and with the energy and themes of Quentin Tarantino's grind house 70's. Life plays with your emotions, making you care for the bad-guy hero even though he is a vicious killer, and causes one to release tension through laughter when the blood starts gushing like a dozen ruptured fire hoses. Wholesale death, blood by the gallons, broken bones and multiple beatings with humongous pipe-wrenches, two-by-fours, and lead pipes are on order, right after a heaping dish of innocent love and a guy trying for once to do the right thing.

The plot, well you see, it's like this: you can see everything coming a mile away, the movie plays it straight, and follows the exact path you know it will and the exact path you hope it will. There are no twist endings, no complicated triple crosses, no hidden motives for the characters. Everything on screen happens the way you see it, and everything thing ends exactly the way you picture it. And this is a good thing. The film is so on track that it doesn't need a twist or a swerve to make you pay attention. It starts at A, ends at E, and hits B, C and D on the way there. Life is so steeped in its genre tropes of noir character and themes that the ending is know to all of us before it even starts. However, it's the journey that matters, and I'll be damned if you can find a better-looking, more brutally violent journey anywhere.

As much as I try to analyze the film, nothing comes to mind. And this is the purest of all compliments. The film is as shallow as the pools of blood splattered in the hallways, alleyways and run down exteriors of the sets. Often times a director feels the need to bog a simple story down with twists, and a deeper meaning to hide the fact that they are afraid to just let things happen because they need to happen. Bittersweet Life is not one of these films. It exists with its soul laid bare for all to see, and when the carnage is complete, you thank the film for being honest with itself. As the final credits roll you might find yourself asking, "Is that it?" Yes, that is it—cinematic perfection. It is all it needs to be: pure and simple, boisterous and calm, bloody and drenched in gore and an honest movie with nothing to hide.

--genrebusters

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39 out of 50 people found the following comment useful :-
Another breathtaking revenge movie from South-Korea, 14 August 2005
9/10
Author: raweater from Germany

I had the luck to watch this gem at the Fantasy-Film-Festival in Frankfurt yesterday. It was shown in a theater with about 600 seats and against my expectations the room was packed with people.

In comparison with Oldboy or Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance the story is not as deep and goes more straightforward to the pure revenge theme. But this does not make the movie less enjoyable. The cinematography is brilliant and the main-character delivers a great performance. It contains beautifully choreographed martial-arts and gunfight scenes with references to masterpieces like Taxi Driver and Kill Bill.

Despite the fact it is very harsh in some scenes the humor does not come to short. The scene with a discussion of Korean-Russian wannabe-gangsters made me nearly wet my pants.

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41 out of 54 people found the following comment useful :-
face-dragged-across-the-cinderblock-wall, 8 July 2005
10/10
Author: Musashi Zatoichi (info@dvdstockholm.com) from Stockholm

For director Kim Jee-woon, humor is a basic element of films. And he says no matter how dark and moody it may seem, his new film ''A Bittersweet Life (Talkomhan Insaeng)¡¯¡¯ is no exception.

''This movie basically deals with relationship breakups resulting from small communication breakdowns,¡¯¡¯ Kim said during a news conference Monday after the preview screening of ''A Bittersweet Life.¡¯¡¯ Without calling it comedy exactly, sometimes audiences have to laugh at very serious or ironic situations, Kim said.

Kim has shown his unique morbid sense of humor in previous movies such as ''The Quiet Family,¡¯¡¯ a black comedy about a family who kill visitors to their cottage, ''The Foul King,¡¯¡¯ a comic drama about an amateur wrestler, and one horror contribution work for the omnibus film ''Three.¡¯¡¯ Kim is also behind ''A Tale of Two Sisters,¡¯¡¯ the psychological horror film that became a summer hit in 2003.

''A Bittersweet Life,¡¯¡¯ starring Lee Byung-hun from ''Everybody Has a Little Secret¡¯¡¯ and Shin Mina from ''Madeleine,¡¯¡¯ portrays the desperate and brutal revenge of Sun-woo (played by Lee) after he is expelled from his gang and comes close to being killed by his boss.

Lee Byung-hun is a hit-man who falls for the girlfriend of his boss in the stylishly violent ¡°A Bittersweet Life.¡± Conventional ideas of causation are put into doubt in director Kim Jee-woon's twist on film noire. ''A Bittersweet Life (Talkomhan Insaeng)'' is what Korean critics are describing as ''Action Noire.'' In it, he tweaks the traditional Korean gangster story line, presenting a work with film noire undertones and stylish cinematography.

Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun) is a revenging dark angel dressed in black. Gang leader Kang (Kim Young-cheol) assigns Sun-woo, his right-hand man, to watch after his nubile girlfriend/professional cellist Hee-soo (Shin Mina) while he is away and find out about the other guy with whom he suspects she is messing around.

The plot is complicated by Sun-woo's existential decision to stray from the explicit instructions with which he is charged. He is cryptically told time and again to make good on a promise, but he never exactly know what that is.

Much of the action occurs in the long shadows the sprawling megapolis Seoul casts. Here, the gangsters wish they were too cool to be killed. No friend can really be trusted as the good guys are not so good and the bad guys can be down right evil. Importantly, the motivation of his tormentors is shrouded in mystery.

But the movie has been labeled ''action noire'' for a good reason. The stylistic ultra-violence of director Kim is superb. The creepy fisherman killer represents a unique Korean twist on the classic film noire villain. Our hero is not a good, good guy either, and I loved that about him. He is not only tough, but also a stone-face killer _ a tribute to both the director and actor's character interpretation.

After all, gangsters should fight to kill, and that means sometimes going for the knees and other joints, hitting low and dirty to take the guy out quick. In general, the fight scenes were creative. Watch for the face-dragged-across-the-cinderblock-wall scene, perhaps a first for cinematic violence.

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30 out of 38 people found the following comment useful :-
Spectacular-South Korea does it again, 11 February 2006
10/10
Author: mmeyers-4 from United States

This masterpiece comes from the director of Tales of Two Sisters and he delivers an epic tale of revenge.

I can't urge you enough to see this movie. The gun battles are reminiscent of Scarface, the martial arts are gritty and realistic, the poignancy of unrequited love is painful, there is a deep philosophical current that underlies this film, and the camera work is superb-but that's not what carries the movie. The actor who plays the main character is what sets this magnificent movie apart from the trash put out by Hollywood. He's a man's man-sharply dressed in well tailored suits driving in a BMW sedan (like the transporter)through beautiful Seoul (showing what a beautiful, spotless, and vibrant city it is). He reaches the point of no return and his vengeance and determination are a tour de force.

Magnificent. Bravo. South Korean films reign supreme.

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30 out of 43 people found the following comment useful :-
Entertaining enough, if not quite a Ji-woon Kim masterpiece, 20 August 2005
7/10
Author: Chris Docker (eyeforfilm) from Scotland, United Kingdom

After Tale of Two Sisters, Ji-woon Kim's new movie has been eagerly anticipated. In his previous film, the marks of originality, intellectual challenge and superb visual style hailed the possibility of a brave new voice in Korean cinema.

A Bittersweet Life commences with similarly awesome photography and ambiance. The wind in the leaves of a tree - Is it the leaves or the wind that moves? asks the disciple of the master. Neither, he replies, it is your mind and heart that moves. Cut to La Dolce Vita, the swish bar restaurant which we are to discover is also the gangland stronghold of Sun-Woo. A single tree in the centre of the restaurant's sky lounge. The colours red and black, glossy and visually forceful in the lounge - they not only play heavily in the film but make any small deviations stand out. Lushness or delicacy is easily conveyed later in the film by colour, a respite to the bloodshed that will almost swamp us. A tinkling piano (Chopin is used as part of the score) adds a delicate counterpoint to what we know will surely be an overload of violence and mayhem.

Sun-Woo has served his boss, President Kang, faithfully for seven years and is now manager of Dolce Vita as well as Kang's right hand man. Background profits, and gang competition, focuses on innocuous little sidelines like the supply of guns or dancing girls, and which countries these should come from. Kang has a secret lover from the 'normal' world, a cellist who is much younger than he, and whom he suspects of infidelity. Kang entrusts Sun-Woo to sort it out and show no mercy. The warfare that follows goes beyond honour, beyond profit, beyond vengeance, . . . beyond any rational point in fact.

Sun-Woo is the ultimate cool bad guy. Indentured to a world of violence and expert in the use of martial arts, knives and guns, he is almost a humanised Bruce Lee who's woken up on a Tarantino set. It sounds almost too good to be true and it is. The story lines are formulaic and derivative, consisting largely of how to engineer more ingenious punch-ups, torture or revenge posturing. Light humour afforded in the contrast between suave topdogs and bumbling henchmen has been done so many times, and many of the entertaining debacles could have been borrowed from Kill Bill. But entertaining it is, on an undemanding level. Sadly it is not the work of the Master that we might have expected from Two Sisters. "The dream I had can't come true," laments the protagonist, and ironically the dreams Ji-woon Kim's fans may justifiably had don't quite come true in A Bittersweet Life, but this otherwise elegant shoot-em-up is still reasonable 'boys night out' night fare.

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20 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
My interpretations to clear up some confusion, 8 April 2006
10/10
Author: sugarbomber from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This is one of the best films I've seen in my life, with beautiful cinematography, excellent acting, and most importantly, a great script. It's sad to see that some of you are too busy critiquing the lack of complexity in the plot, because it is this simplicity that makes this movie so beautiful.

Since many of you have already reiterated the plot, i'll just cut the chase and try to clear up some confusion, hopefully.

First of all, to understand why he let the girl go and turns against his boss, the flashback towards the end is very crucial. When she plays the cello, he smiles, and as he is dying, he smiles as he listens to her voice. These are the only two occasions in which he smiles throughout the entire movie. Whether this is love, attraction, or because he was thankful that she made him feel good, is open to interpretation. Given that he is an extremely straightforward and honest character(and also given that in this movie, everything is what you see on the screen- there are no hidden motives, twists, whatsoever), I assume that the reason he doesn't answer (or CAN'T answer) when asked why he did it by his boss is because he doesn't know himself.

I think the key to understanding this movie is the title, and the narration at the end of the movie (something along the line of a disciple telling his master that he cries after a sweet dream because he knows it can't come true). For Sunwoo,the girl and his belief(?) that he can kill everyone else and still live are sweet dreams that cannot come true. The reason why he unrealistically gets by after getting shot and stabbed so much, is not simply because he is the main character, but because everything he does after meeting the girl is like a sweet 'dream', a surreal reality(yes, an oxymoron, just like the title- a 'bittersweet' life). The morbid ending is also very fitting- as sweet as the dream was, the more bitter it is when he "wakes up" from it and faces reality(once again relating to the last narration).

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17 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
A truly excellent movie!, 3 June 2006
10/10
Author: siapanta-1 from Greece

I had the opportunity to watch this brilliant movie at home, while translating it from English to Greek for the viewers of the Thessaloniki Film Festival in November, 2005.

I was impressed by the stunning performance of the leading actor, as well as of the other actors. The music of the film was also wisely selected.

Some -few- funny moments in the film help the viewer lighten up and get ready for what I saw as brilliantly directed fighting scenes, that neither bored me nor made me look away.

At the end of the film, when the desciple was crying for "a dream that can never come true" I was absolutely sure that what I saw was nothing less than a true work of art.

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25 out of 41 people found the following comment useful :-
A Bittersweet Prose, 2 August 2005
6/10
Author: Gigo_Satana from Oriental State of Mind

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

It's seems like there is no stopping Korean cinema, as the year isn't yet over and they've already released a handful of spectacular features. Aside from Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, A Bittersweet Life was the second revenge driven film I was eagerly awaiting. I kept my expectations at a reasonable level, even though I was well aware of Kim's reputation, his eye for capturing detail and his strength at creating eerie atmosphere.

And the atmosphere here was felt right from the start. Byung-hun Lee plays Sun-woo, a hotel restaurant enforcer and a trusted henchman to a powerful crime boss. From the initial glimpse, Lee carries heavily confined mannerisms and easily achieves seriousness and believability. The action, although a bit reminiscent of the Far East style, is intense yet touches the limits of implausibility, much like the ending. I must say that it wasn't the action that held my interest at first, but Lee's character who was sharply followed by the camera through the nights of driving and contemplating. He vacantly lives from one day to next, feeling strongly disconnected from the world around him, but still manages his duties to perfection and to much praise from his boss Kang.

That's until he gets entrusted by Kang to carry out a short task involving his young mistress. The female character had some potential in the beginning as she evoked some elusive feelings in our gloomy lead, but she was abruptly shelved. The story makes the turning point as his mission goes awry, but before I was able to question the cause and effect, next came the brutally unprecedented fight between Sun-woo and the thugs. This helped the story quite a bit, since it showed how something small and avoidable could turn into something big and ugly.

This surprisingly fills approximately half of the film. The remaining time offers few black comedic elements, fistful of rapid shooting sequences and even hints at a possibility of a Mexican standoff. Not to nitpick or complain, but purely for the sake of conversing and since the movie is labeled as a "real life" actioner, there are moments when you think just why weren't these gangsters carrying guns at so many instances? And no, I didn't ask the same question with Kill Bill.

In the beginning of the film, Sung-woo recited; "Master, are the branches moving or is it the wind?" - "That which moves is neither the branches or the wind...It's your heart and mind". I'm no expert at this or a big fan of decoding messages, but I think that it could simply mean that Sung-woo (or the audience) never meant to know what specifically cradled his life into such reveries, nor was Sun-woo able find any grounds of communication with his former boss who sometimes looked at him as if he was his own son.

Regardless, could seven years of being a loyal servant to a respectful boss really have pushed both parties into such desperate measures over this? Perhaps he was too stubborn or jealous of Kang to reveal his cause, but why did he decide to help Hee-soo in the first place? Maybe he wanted her to go back to Kang and make him happy. After all, he was such a calculating person that didn't desire love. Maybe it was just because she found him boring and ethereally played cello? Sun-woo's final quote suggested his envision of a dream or its demise. He failed to achieve what he desired. I failed to fully grasp what he desired as well. Perhaps he wanted a more ambiguous finale that gangsters rarely get afforded in reality, but the one he received was pretty dubious on its own.

I ask these questions not in vain or to mercilessly critique this film, but because I genuinely wanted to know more about what drove these characters and wouldn't have minded if the movie was longer. After all it was because of Hee-soo that Sun-woo got to travel on a different path in life. If you'll omit such speculations or enhance the plot by filling in the subtleties of Sun-woo's motives then I'm sure you'll find this film very uncompromising and intense from the first reel up until the final hodgepodge of a bloodbath.

Overall this was a fairly decent noirish piece with a prosaic story, glossed by few slick action sequences that will likely get some fans rallied. Although the film shares few similarities with OldBoy, it doesn't compare nor achieves the brute straightforwardness seen in such films as Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Peppermint Candy. It was stylistically directed with pleasant music and cinematography, but it ultimately left me unaffected by the underdevelopment of characters leading up to the final showdown. Maybe it was its intent to come off this way, but at the end of the day I am merely a film fan looking for characters to empathize with, be they cold hearted rapists or washed out ex silver medalists on a bad luck streak.

Nevertheless, this film is still recommended and is much better than what Hollywood puts out there most of the time. Give it a try and hopefully you'll find it more overall satisfying than I did.

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30 out of 51 people found the following comment useful :-
Absolutely perfect, 7 February 2006
10/10
Author: casanova_tester from United Kingdom

This was possibly the greatest film I have ever seen. It was superb on so many different levels. The script, the fighting, the special effects all mould the perfect film. Within the first ten minutes i knew this film was going to keep me on the edge of my seat. I have never been so excited by action scenes before and never laughed with so much shock at the extent of brutal fighting. It is a genre of its own as it has none of that Hollywood business where the bad guys always fail and the main character is invincible and although love is a factor it is not overplayed. This film is electrifying to say the very least. It has more fist action than all the ROCKYs put together, more blood than Goodfellas and is as exciting if not more than a Tarantino film.

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12 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Punished for doing the right thing, 31 May 2006
9/10
Author: Shawn Watson (gator_macready@yahoo.com) from The Underverse

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Sun-Woo is the manager of sleek modern restaurant in uptown Seoul called La Dolce Vita, but that's not his only employment. He is also the errand-boy of underworld Kingpin Mr Kang. A job he fulfils ruthlessly and efficiently, until the day Mr Kang takes off for a week, leaving Sun-Woo to mind his much younger girlfriend Hee-Soo to make sure she doesn't sleep around. If she does, he is to execute both of them. Hee-Soo cheats. Sun-Woo almost sentences them to death, but has a sober moment and realises that letting them go is the right thing to do.

In Mr Kang's absence a rival crime syndicate, headed by President Baek and his over-confident son is becoming more and more impatient to force a business merger with Kang. Despite Kang's reluctance to go through with this deal one of his own men, Sun-Woo's cohort, Min-Gi welcomes the business with Baek and his son and complicates matters.

Upon Kang's return he figures out Sun-Woo's failure to carry out his orders and demands he be killed unless he apologises. At this moment, Sun-Woo is about to be tortured to death by Baek Jr. but is returned to Kang on the promise that he will do business.

It's out of the frying pan and into the deepest pits of fiery hell for Sun-Woo. Already bashed and bruised and beaten he is cast down in the mud during a heavy rainstorm and forced to apologise. He resists. His hand is crushed with a massive wrench he is buried alive.

He survives and breaks through the loose soil. Sun-Woo and the audience breathe a sigh of relief. But it's far from over. Min-Ji and a large group of thugs are still waiting by the shallow grave. They drag him into a old building and give him 15 minutes to call Mr. Kang and beg for his life. Still he refuses. And when those 15 minutes are up Sun-Woo unleashes an incredibly lethal and jaw-droppingly furious ass-kicking like you have never seen. He goes through about 20 men like they weren't even there and dishes out agonising, blood-soaked punishment in one of the most nail-biting escapes you'll ever see.

It's now time for Sun-Woo to plan his revenge. And that he does with lovingly violent detail.

A Bittersweet Life comes in 3 large acts that make the 120-minute running time pass in a breeze. The set-up and story are so simple and honest that you can literally start-watching the film at any point and still become immersed in the action. But, I feel that many viewers may be missing the twist at the end.

By 'twist' I mean after Sun-Woo's death the film goes back to the beginning, revealing that he only fantasised the whole thing. He says the cruelty of any sweet dream is waking up to find yourself back in the real world. He is still in his restaurant and when no one is looking, insecurely looking over his shoulder to make sure, Sun-Woo shadow boxes for fun or curiosity. Hardly the kind of behavior you would expect from a man who has just annihilated 50 baddies.

But, regardless of the final outcome, it's the high-octane journey you take to get there that really matters right? And A Bittersweet Life is one movie you'll want to watch over and over again.

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