A Bittersweet Life VCD

However, when Sun Woo discovers Hee Soo with her boyfriend, he chooses to let both of them live. Unfortunately, this gesture of goodwill brings a world of pain onto Sun Woo as the entire criminal organization sets its sights on punishing him for his act of betrayal. Bloodied and beaten, Sun Woo survives the ordeal, eventually embarking on a brutal, bloody trail of vengeance from which no one seems likely to survive. But the strange fact remains: Sun Woo had been Kang's faithful servant for years, why would he suddenly have a change of heart now? Out of love? Or something more complicated?

Blending the hardboiled cool of classic film noir with the hyper-stylized action of a John Woo film, A Bittersweet Life is a beautiful, wholly engaging cinematic experience. Before Sun Woo decides to ignore his boss' orders we watch as he slowly comes to an epiphany. However, we're not quite privy to the depth of this realization until the final scene of the film, in which everything that has come before soon makes simple, perfect sense. Once Sun Woo goes against Kang, the film becomes a visceral, balls-to-the-wall action film as the carnage comes full-force. As far as revenge fantasies go in the movies, it's not a stretch at all to say that A Bittersweet Life can stand alongside the best of them.

As brutally violent as the film can be, it's refreshing to know that the filmmakers retained their sense of humor. Interestingly enough, the film contains a variety of surprisingly comic moments interspersed throughout all the guts and gore. Odd as it may sound, A Bittersweet Life can be a remarkably funny film at times.

Anchoring the entire picture is Lee Byung Eun, who does a fine job inhabiting the role of the enforcer-turned-romantic-turned-unstoppable killing machine. Although Lee's good looks certainly help add to Sun Woo's character, he's more than just a pretty face. The actor brings a certain amount of depth to his anti-hero role, which is quite an achievement considering that a fully realized characterization of Sun Woo is hampered by the fact that his motivations must not be revealed until the film's ending. Even so, Lee does convey a sense of Sun Woo's internal life, even if it is something not made readily apparent by the script itself.

The cinematography, costuming, set design, and soundtrack make A Bittersweet Life a visual and aural feast for its audience. Beautiful as it is, it's not hard to see how people might find the proceedings a little superficial. Thankfully, that actually seems to be based on how the film is constructed, as everything is meant to build towards the film's conclusion, in which the real meaning behind Sun Woo's quest for revenge is revealed. Visceral, lyrical, and sometimes even comical, A Bittersweet Life is a complete cinematic experience and contains an ending that brings everything to a suitably bittersweet close. In short, it's a terrific motion picture.

By Calvin McMillin

Lee Byung-hun (Joint Security Area) is our anti-hero, a somber, friendless enforcer for a vicious gangster named Kang (Kim Yeong-cheol). When Kang plans a trip out of town for a few days, he sends trusted Sun-woo (Lee) to ferry his moll (Min-a Shin, Volcano High) about town, with explicit orders to execute her if he discovers she is having an affair. It shouldn't come as a surprise that she is indeed having an affair, and Sun-woo does make the fateful decision not to kill her, a decision that turns his own organization against him, setting the cold killer off on a quest for vengeance, although one suspects he isn't quite sure why.

Director Kim Ji-woon (The Quiet Family) shows the initial encounters between enforcer and moll from Sun-woo's perspective, using camera angles and tight shots to give us insight into what Sun-woo sees: not the woman, not Hee-soo, but the hair, the way she brushes her hair, the smooth skin on her shoulder, the way she plays with her spoon when she eats. When Sun-woo makes his choice, it's easy to decipher that it's not because he's fallen in love with Hee-soo, because "love" is a word not in his vocabulary. She is simply the spark, the catharsis that frees him to see that he's living a solitaire existence, and that, despite his cavernous apartment, fine suits, and expensive meals, he really has nothing.

As such, it's not the story that is important in A Bittersweet Life, because frankly, the story is of the inevitable kind. It's the moments in-between the formulaic beginning and ending that matters. The scene where Sun-woo is spurned into a fit of measured and controlled road rage, or when he hurries to pick up Hee-soo from her violin practice, nervously flicking at his hair as he bounces up the hallway like a ball of energy, only to take a sudden u-turn - physically and emotionally - when Hee-soo's other lover shows up first. Kim knows he's crafted a story from a foundation of genre cliches, and instead of pretending otherwise, the director uses them to play games with the audience.

In-between the stylized violence, the harsh bloodletting and dead bodies that pile up with amazing speed, A Bittersweet Life is surprisingly funny when you least expect it. In one scene, gangsters are digging a grave for Sun-woo when one of them stops just long enough to see Sun-woo make his escape, to which the gangster turns to his oblivious buddies and quips, "Stop digging. We are so [expletive]." This, mind you, after a sequence of such grand violence orchestrated so insanely that you just know a stuntman or two, or a dozen, must have gone to the hospital that night. Later, Sun-woo tries to buy a gun from some amateur gun smugglers with disastrous results - for them.

The first half of A Bittersweet Life occupies itself more with its leading man's personality, following him as he discovers that he has a need he had never acknowledged before, and the desire to achieve that need overcomes all else. The second half is all sound and fury, and Kim delivers a staggering bodycount, all achieved in brutal, realistic fashion. A major detour from the usual Korean gangster films is the prominent appearance (and needless to say, uses) of firearms in A Bittersweet Life. To watch Sun-woo strolling about town, capping gangsters in every body part with the cool of Steve McQueen and the cold, focused efficiency of the Terminator, you would think it was Tarantino, or Peckinpah, or perhaps McQuarrie (for those who have seen Way of the Gun) at work instead of a Korean director.

Alas, there's no real deeper meaning to A Bittersweet Life, and assigning one to the film would be foolhardy. This is a simple story of a man who wants more than what he has, but has absolutely no idea how to achieve it. He isn't in love with Hee-soo, and vice versa. Sun-woo's quest is, in every way, a pure revenge fantasy played out against a backdrop of blood and violence and gang coda, but as his final encounter with Kang proves, there is no other purpose, no higher calling, to the carnage that the two men have wrought. It is, indeed, a bittersweet life, but it sure was a hell of a roller coaster ride from point A to point B.

Movie Grade: 4 out of 5 stars

By Nix - BeyondHollywood.com