Saw A Bittersweet Life, a Korean gangster film. It follows an emotionless attack-dog bodyguard of some kind of gangster. He's sent to tail the gangster's girlfriend to see if she's cheating. The girlfriend is sweet and adorable and (as you might be able to predict) awakens the protagonist's long-dormant emotions. If she is not cheating on the gangster, we know, she soon will be. So, the film toddles along. There's some interesting stuff at the beginning involving wind and trees and causality and perception, but this is window-dressing to the real business at hand which is to watch guys in suits fire handguns.
To the film's credit, the gunfights and kick-boxing scenes are spaced out nicely and very sumptuously presented to the viewer. One fight, for instance, takes place in a fur coat warehouse, which allows the hero to lay out a spread of guns on gorgeous white fur. There's the predictable Korean super-melodrama of course, but I felt it meshed nicely with the story of a bodyguard feeling feelings for possibly the first time. This is a nice little film. It didn't hit me in any emotional or intellectual way, but it's a crime flick, so what do you expect?
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