Seon-woo works as an enforcer for a vicious gangster named Kang, and when Kang plans to take a trip, he sends Seon-woo to look after his mistress while he's out of town. Kang is suspicious that she has an affair and instructs Seon-woo to execute her if that would be true. Kang leaves and soon, to his great fear, Seon-woo finds out that the girl is actually having an affair but decide not to kill her. When Kang returns, Seon-woo lies and says that she was not having an affair, but Kang later finds out what really happened which makes Seon-woo's own organization turn against him, and he has to suffer the consequences for his actions. Humiliated and thrown out of the organization, he seeks vengeance for what they did to him.
In the same vein as Oldboy comes A Bittersweet Life, a movie so good it shocked me when watching it for the first time. It's a violent revenge movie with a gripping good story, awesome acting and that looks absolutely fantastic. This is easily one of the best Korean movies I've seen to date, and a movie that I will probably enjoy watching many times in the future. If you're a fan of Oldboy, you're most likely to find A Bittersweet Life to be pretty sweet. They both deal with the concept of revenge, but are at the same time obviously very different from each other.
Byung-hun Lee (Cut, Addicted) stars as Seon-woo, an enforcer for President Kang, a very dangerous man and if he wants to get rid of people, Seon-woo is the one taking care of it. Kang tells Seon-woo that he's seeing a younger woman but that he suspects that she's cheating on him and wants Seon-woo to find out if that's the case. If that actually would be the case, Seon-woo is ordered by Kang to kill the mistress along with the person she's having an affair with. When Seon-woo goes to visit her you can tell that he falls for the girl, but also discover that, just like Kang suspected, she is having an affair. He enters her house when her lover is there and gets ready to off them both, but when the final moment comes, he just can't do it, and for this he gets in a lot of trouble.
 
The most interesting thing about this movie and why it's so great to watch is, besides the story being great, the main character that is Seon-woo. The way Byung-hun Lee has captured the character sure tells that he's a great actor and he's what's keeping the movie alive from beginning to end. Seon-woo seems to know nothing about what it's like to have a "normal" life, as the world he lives in is only filled with evil and violence. He has a hard front, can be violent and nasty without remorse, but it's failry easy to see through all that and see that he has a gentle side as well, and that makes him interesting.
For instance with all the violence going on in the movie it sometimes seems like he has no conscience and couldn't care less about what happens to other people. His face is like stone with no expressions to reveal what he really feels, if anything. But at the same time you know that there's something more underneath it all, like when he's around the mistress you really get to see that there's more than one side to him, and that makes him a really likable character. Actually, the further the movie goes, the more likable he becomes and you can't help but feeling sorry for him which is a really effective part of the overall experience.
The movie mixes violence and emotions in an excellent way, and even if the violence is a bit too brutal at times, you still have a lot of "nice" things to fall back on. There are a lot of action elements and the movie is quite stylish to say the least, but the most important thing is that it's not the least bit shallow and while it's entertaining eye candy at times, you still really care about the characters and what's going on. A word of warning though, the violence is a bit much to take in at times, and while it might have a slight Tarantino feel to it, it's very realistic and might be hard to sit through for some, watching people getting beaten senseless in a nasty way.
Just like with Oldboy, this is a movie with a story you can't reveal to much about, but that instead needs to be seen for yourself. It has a little bit of everything from dark humour (well, extremely dark), to gangsters, romance, action and violence among other things. The acting and directing is brilliant, the score is fitting and the outcome is good. Truly recommended.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Dalkomhan insaeng
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: Ji-woon Kim
WRITING CREDITS: Ji-woon Kim
GENRE: Crime, Drama, Action, Revenge
CAST: Byung-hun Lee, Jeong-min Hwang, Roe-ha Kim
COUNTRY: South Korea
RUNTIME: 120 min
RATING: 10/10
A Bittersweet Life Website/IMDB Click here
A Bittersweet Life Trailer Click here
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