Some people just look at home all bloody and stuff y’know?
My first introduction to Lee ByungHun, and waaaaay before I knew who Shin Minah was, this movie came into my life at the very beginning of my interest in Korean cinema. After watching Kim JeeWoon’s A Tale Of Two Sisters and Park ChanWook’s Vengeance Trilogy I sought out a few other south Korean movies (by using amazon.com recommendations of all things – this was epic amounts of years ago when I knew nothing) and bought Kim KiDuk’s The Bow and Samaritan Girl, and Kim JeeWoon’s A Bittersweet Life. It is a film I watch when it has reached the point where I have sort of forgotten exactly what happens again and every time I get about half way through I start to remember how it all erupts and I fall for the movie all over again.
This, like all other Kim JeeWoon films I have seen, stands out from others in the same genre. In this case it is partly due to the actor cast in the main role but mainly due to the quiet, sad, beautiful and lonely feel to a dramatic and violent story.
So, first off, I will explain a little about the greatness that is ByungHun. I would say without hesitation that he is one of my favourite actors, and having just this afternoon watched some other movies of his that I hadn’t seen yet, I was reminded of where I first saw him and thought I should write this one up before I go ahead with the others.
This film does offer all the things you want from Asian gangster type shooty bloody fighty nasties, but ByungHun has a quality that brings unspoken depth and texture that would be sorely missed if his character was merely played as a hard man. This is obviously a necessary part of the role and as ByungHun conveys all this crazy amount of feeling with just a simple glance or exhalation of breath, the combination of him and this character was ideal.
Now, I haven’t watched this since I knew Shin Minah had more tails than you could shake a stick at (don’t shake sticks at a gumiho, she’ll eat your liver) but it makes total sense now when I think about it. I knew I recognised her from somewhere else before gumiho and the devil and whatever else it was that I cant remember off the top of my head, and actually her image came flooding back to me while I wasn’t even watching sweet life, I just suddenly thought - it was her. Bizarre.
Shin Minah is another one with that ambiguous quality – you can see thoughts flying around in that mind of hers and you can see her feelings in her eyes but you just can’t get hold of them - as if she is not really on the same plane of existence as you. In this movie she is beautiful as ever, and fits the part perfectly with a quiet, unexplainable poise and free spirit.
For outlining the plot I want to be careful not to give any spoilers to this review but the film almost feels like it is in four parts and I should not say too much that happens later on if I can help it.
ByunHun plays SunWoo, a guy who works for a powerful underground gang boss called kang, he is a hard man and hotel manager ordered to take care of business above and below ground when needed. Kang requests a personal job from SunWoo, to follow his young girlfriend and take care of the problem if she is cheating on him. Being drawn to the girl’s sweet nature and spirit, when SunWoo finds her with another man he cannot help but let her go, but in doing so he opens up a world of pain for himself and quickly finds himself on the run, tortured, buried alive, and then on a killing spree in order to get to kang to finally settle it all.
Parts of this film are brutal. But it depends how desensitised you are to how you see violence in general anyway. It also depends on how much you look at the context when you watch films like these. I spend most of the time sad when he gets hurt, not wincing in squeamish shock. Again possibly due to ByungHun’s abilities, but regardless, I just don’t see SunWoo as any old brutish hard man.
The fight scenes are awesome, especially when he really goes ape-sh*t in the rain and mud etc. The further into the film you get, the more blood is lost, and the more wretched they all become. The sheer exhaustion felt by SunWoo is contagious and as a viewer you want to find some way out for him somehow.
I really think it is more than just a “relentless action-thriller” comparable to western Scorsese types as it says on the dvd cover, He is not just tough, or bitter, or vengeful in a hard man’s game. He is finding out about human nature, love, and morality (in a gangstery sort of way) while trying to save himself in a completely unforgiving world.
It has that beautiful pace that all Kim JeeWoon movies have, and that lonely feeling that you just can’t shake. It is far more than its blurb makes it out to be. The title is completely fitting though. How can you watch such bloody beatings and still call it a beautiful film? Kim JeeWoon that’s how. I know I am biased because A Tale Of Two Sisters is one of my favourite horror films in the world, but there is a reason for that. I like movies that aren’t just completely all their allocated genre. No matter how savage or testing, if it is still beautiful somehow then it is likely to feel worth the effort in watching. It is why I watch more Korean movies than anything else. That beauty is always present in Kim JeeWoon films, and A Bittersweet Life is possibly the most perfect example.
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