Just a three hour train ride from Seoul, and one of the most important ports in the world. Busan has become the second most famous city in Korea, thanks to the PIFF and the 'trading hub' drive by the government. Thanks to all this positive publicity, 'Dynamic Busan' is now seen as a more 'down-to-earth', warmer and passionate place compared to the capital; a vibrant cultural center full of variety, combining a rich history with its strikingly modern present. Yet, this dualism also hides a darker side, with the less glamorous parts of the city having to deal with a fertile drug trade, and several 조직폭력배 (Organized Crime Societies... gangs!) vying for power.
Chungmuro certainly treats its 'little sister' much better than it does the countryside (which always seems to be a wasteland of ignorance, old fashioned kitsch and perfect setting for a cliche-ridden story, if you believe what mainstream films tell you), but both in the past and present it used Busan as a hotbed of gangsters (foreign and domestic) to exploit in Chuseok comedies. Nowadays most gangster comedies seem to deal with Jeolla Province 'families' -- like 가문의 위기 (Marrying The Mafia 2) -- but the trend started from Busan as a reaction to the monster success of Kwak Kyung-Taek's 2001 drama 친구 (Friend), set in the seedy back alleys of the port city. Song Hae-Sung's 파이란 (Failan) already showed the dark side of Busan, and it certainly wasn't the first film to do so, but the 8 Million seller created a craze in the country around the gang 'culture' permeating the underworld of Busan.
Then again, while those gangster comedies (parodying the rough and cruel world portrayed in 'Friend') were never really taken seriously, they glamourized gangsters and their lifestyle to a degree rarely seen before. Films like 두사부일체 (My Boss, My Hero), the 'Mafia' series, and many other examples between 2002 and 2003 created a sort of 'new age' gangster: dumb, old fashioned both in taste (Jung Joon-Ho and Jung Woong-In singing Kim Heung-Guk's '호랑 나비' in 'My Boss, My Hero') and core values (they're all family men!), and... let's admit it, they were goodfellas too. Now, while there's absolutely nothing wrong with de-mystifying certain figures (while the 'real baddies' do their work behind the scenes, and in much more prestigious and respected venues), one needs a certain balance, a yin and yang. You can't have the funny gangsters without showing the other side of the coin. But, thankfully, the second half of last year's output started showing a move towards meatier films looking at gangster life, like 강력3반 (Never To Lose) and 미스터 소크라테스 (Mr. Socrates) did. And noir films starring gangsters are on the rise as well, after the critical success of Kim Jee-woon's 달콤한 인생 (A Bittersweet Life) despite its tepid box office performance. After 야수 (Running Wild), a string of noir films will debut in Chungmuro in the next few months.
Exploring the drug trade in Busan and the desperate fight to the death (like the Korean title suggests) of two people, Choi Ho's 사생결단 (死生決斷, Bloody Tie) is one of the most interesting new works of this noir revival. Choi, responsible for 'urban melodramas' like 1998's 바이준 (Bye June) and 2002's 후아유 (Who R.U.) returns after a long hiatus with a completely different genre, directing two of the hottest new actors in Korea, Ryu Seung-Beom and Hwang Jung-Min. Looking at the two's career and this film shows their peculiar destiny. The last time they worked together was in Im Soon-Rye's wonderful 2001 drama 와이키키 브라더스 (Waikiki Brothers), a love song to a dying profession (touring night club bands) in an increasingly modernized Korea. Ryu, the younger brother of director Ryu Seung-Wan of 주먹이 운다 (Crying Fist) fame, was still a very unexperienced star with a few films and TV Dramas under his belt, after his shocking debut in his brothers' 죽거나 혹은 나쁘거나 (Die Bad); Hwang, a big name in Daehak-Ro who appeared in bit roles of a couple films, was making his real debut, after an audition.
Who would ever think the two would end up as A-list stars in Chungmuro, two of the most respected actors in the country. Ryu has shown he can also work in more commercial fare -- his latest romcom 야수와 미녀 (The Beast and The Beauty) did pretty well -- and Hwang's talent finally started seeing the acclaim he always deserved last year, after the box office success of 너는 내 운명 (You're My Sunshine) and 내 생애 가장 아름다운 인주일 (All For Love). It might turn like another 'Running Wild', which despite top stars Kwon Sang-Woo and Yoo Ji-Tae (and apparently another stunning performance by Son Byung-Ho) failed to stir up the box office, in an increasingly female-oriented Chungmuro. But it's nice to see some variety in mainstream Korean cinema, especially when that means getting another noir film.
It's 1998, the entire country embroiled in the effects of the IMF crisis. Busan has become a swamp infested by alligators, basking in the 백색가루 (white powder) craze. Sang-Do (Ryu Seung-Beom) is just one of the people benefiting from all that, the 'trait d'union' between thousands of 뽕쟁이들 (druggies) and the big drug lords; then we have Detective Do Kyung-Jang (Hwang Jung-Min) of the Drug Division, who makes a living trapping little mice like him. Sang-Do might live the good life, enjoying a luxurious apartment and all the privileges his 'profession' allows, but he's one mistake away from a quick end to his dreams of making it big in the drug world. Kyung-Jang keeps tailing him like a hyena ready to feast on every wrong step he might possibly make, yet he knows he'll be worthless if dead.
He lost a partner thanks to a drug lord, and people like Sang-Do made his life a living hell. But the young dealer is not that much better off, if you start scraping the shiny surface, forced to abandon everything in the name of his profession, even his family. Notorious for always dealing with people like him in a quick, pain-free way (blackmail), Kyung-Jang makes a deal with Sang-Do, to catch the last big fish before stopping all this madness. Use him as the sacrificial lamb for his own means, one last time. Yet, it all fails miserably, and the two end up facing a similar situation: one in prison, the other facing suspension. Now they have to work together, to catch those responsible for messing up their plans. And this time their life is at stake.
'Bloody Tie' releases this April. Here's a few comments from an interview with Director Choi Ho:
You left a lasting impression with your melodramas 바이준 (Bye June) and 후아유 (Who R. U.), yet you're coming back with a noir.
Choi Ho: After 'Who R. U.' people kept sending me scripts, and most were romcoms and melodramas. But I'm getting older, so I started losing interest in that genre. I know this film is completely different from my past works, but since the subject was different, my picking the age of the characters, their situation, creating the personality was just like what I did in my past films. I mean, where do you go from 'Who R. U.'? Because I wanted this film to feel like the great noir films of the past, we paid special attention to the acting, music which could fit with the genre, and art direction as well. But I also tried not to just stick to traditional genre tropes. I wanted to give a very vivid, documentary-like feeling to the film. When you try to focus your attention on mixing cinematic power with the tropes of the genre up to the last minute, trying to influence one with the other, then you're not just following genre conventions, but making a new genre.
The scenes dealing with drug trading and everything related to that are quite striking.
Choi: Ever since 'Who R. U.', I've always been the type who tries to thoroughly depict all the elements of a story. Back then the film was about the boom in venture companies, so I talked and hung around a young friend who worked in one of those companies for a good 6 months. His name was the same I used in the film [played by Jo Seung-Woo], and he gave me a lot of advice when writing the script. I did the same for this film, or you could say even more. Thanks to one of my acquaintances in Busan, I met an inspector in the Drug Division, and we talked about a case he was involved in a decade earlier, and even met the culprit. They helped a lot, as all the drugs and various props appearing in the film and their use come from their description, but that's just secondary, as the story itself is about them. About the drug world, what kind of situations emerge thanks to it, and how people deal with it professionally and personally. Many of the things appearing in the final script come from discussions I had with those people while having a drink, they just unintentionally emerged.
[Sources: nKino, Film2.0, Film2.0]