A loyal bodyguard to a mobster boss must think for himself when things go terribly wrong in this compelling and bloody Korean revenge thriller about the inevitability of karmic retribution.
Review #2,986
Dir. Kim Jee-woon
2005 | South Korea | Crime, Drama, Thriller | 119min | 2.35:1 | Korean & Russian
M18 (passed clean) for violence
Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Kim Yeong-Cheol, Shin Min-a, Kim Roi-ha, Hwang Jung-min
Plot: Kim Sun-woo is an enforcer and manager for a hotel owned by a cold, calculative crime boss, Kang who assigns Sun-woo to a simple errand while he is away on a business trip; to shadow his young mistress, Hee-soo, for fear that she may be cheating on him with a younger man with the mandate that he must kill them both if he discovers their affair.
Awards: Official Selection (Cannes)
Distributor: CJ Entertainment / Finecut
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Revenge & Karma; Self-Agency; Morality
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Slightly Mainstream
Viewed: Netflix
Spoilers: No
Fresh from the success of A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), still one of the scariest K-horror movies ever, genre chameleon Kim Jee-woon tackles the revenge thriller with A Bittersweet Life.
There is nothing new from a genre perspective, at least in comparison to his counterpart Park Chan-wook’s much more celebrated ‘Vengeance’ trilogy, which concluded in the same year with the poetic and bloody Lady Vengeance (2005).
It’s also bloody in A Bittersweet Life, as Lee Byung-hun (of 2000’s Joint Security Area) plays Sun-woo, a loyal bodyguard who is tasked to find out if his mobster boss’ mistress, a young lady, is cheating on him—and if so, he should kill both lovers.
He wavers in the moment of truth, and this sparks a series of escalating events that turn irreversibly brutal.
In an interview, Kim cited Kill Bill (2003-2004) as a key influence, most obviously in a harrowing scene in which a character faces the prospect of being buried alive.
“You always seem to get things done.”
For the most part, A Bittersweet Life is a straightforward action-thriller, shot with the finesse of an efficient storyteller who throws in a few sensational sequences, including one with a car attacked by aggressive men. (Kim would up the ante by pitting aggressive men against each other inside a car in I Saw the Devil.)
Compelling throughout and briskly paced for its type of film, A Bittersweet Life shows us the consequences of thinking for oneself within a system of power and control.
Whether framed as a moment of weakness or strength, to think for oneself is such a sacred act, one that can be liberating and punishing at the same time.
Kim understands this well by subjecting Sun-woo to a barrage of torment, both physical and psychological, but it is a path that he has chosen to accept to free himself.
It is thus fitting that the film is bookended by brief philosophical musings with Buddhist overtones, as if to suggest that while no one can escape the claws of karmic retribution, one can play a part in determining—and accelerating—what’s inevitable.
Grade: B+
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 