I could sit here and start this review off in 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 made have reached this level of, blah, blah. Or I could say if you see one movie this year see, 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 directed by Kim Jee-woon.
Bittersweet Life is 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 carnage 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, and 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.
Life is the journey of a man sent to the depths of hell. Sun-Woo (Lee Byung-heon) has spent the last seven years of his life as a trusted member of a Korean gang. The boss of the gang confides in Sun-Woo to such a level that he asks him to do what might seem impossible. The boss is going away for business for a few days and wants Sun to look after his mistress. The boss is afraid that his mistress might be cheating on him, and if she is, he wants Sun to kill both the mistress and her lover. Well, it turns out the boss was right, however Sun cannot bring himself to murder the young couple. For the first time ever he experiences true innocent love and rather than kill them, he tells them to never see each other again and forget about each other and the entire situation at hand.
All hell breaks loose when the boss returns to Korea, finds out Sun-Woo did not kill his mistress and her lover and proceeds to make Sun’s life one series of brutal beatings after another. The violence really is a sight to behold as the director uses the almost complete lack of available firearms in Korea with bloody results. Everything that is not nailed to the floor, and some things that are, wind up getting smashed into skulls, arms, hands, legs, backs and faces. Flaming clubs of wood are used as bats, while heads become the balls. Bottles and knifes find new ways of penetrating flesh and a giant King Kong sized pipe-wrench smashes the hand of the hero. After losing what must be gallons of blood Sun-Woo is finally buried barely alive in a muddy pit of bloody hell.
Fear not though reader, this is Noir World and no one rests in Noir World until his or her soul is vindicated and revenge enacted. Sun-Woo slowly claws his way to freedom only to be captured again, to fight his way to freedom, and become a one-man killing machine. He tracks down a weapons dealer and gets his hand on a duffle bag full of firearms. However, because of the lack of guns in Korean society, he is a pretty lousy shot. And yet, this does not stop him from single handedly taking on a small army of Korean coolies in what must be one of the most realistic blood-drenched finales ever filmed.
Sun-Woo becomes a man whose only purpose in life is to kill out of pure hatred. For seven years he served his boss “like a dog,” and the one time he chooses not to obey he is taken to a mere inch of his life. His spirit was broken only to be reborn as pure vengeance. For years he bottled up his emotions, only feeling what his boss allowed him to feel, and in a moment rage burst through him like an erupting orgasm of fire. He crawled his away out of hell, and then preceded to claw his way back to the furthest reaches of the pit his tattered body would allow.
Jee-woon directs Bittersweet Life with the skill and patience of a master craftsman. He is not a product of a mind warped by MTV videos, flashy cuts, over editing and vapid commercialism. Jee-woon lets the carnage and the quiet moments unfold before the camera and the viewer’s eyes. He directs with a slow hand and an eye for detail. The same can be said about the acting as well. Seasoned actors turning in brilliant performances of controlled coolness. What could have easily been turned into the hippest tale of modern teen angst and revenge winds up being a very mature and graphic depiction of a man so close to the edge one might wonder if he had already been pushed?
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.
