The Koreans really have been doing it right recently. With the highly successfull vengeance series, Chan Wook Park cemented his unique take on the revenge flick to a highly awed Western audience. It is no surprise that a similiar themed film entitled 'A Bittersweet Life' by Ji-Woon Kim was met with high praise at Cannes 2005. Kim secured internation praise with the brilliantly brooding 'Tale of Two sisters' in 2003 (recently remade as the unborn?) and his following film was just as breath taking.

A Bittersweet Life follows the life of loyal gangster Sun-Woo, who has slowly risen to the higher ranks within the 'family'. Calm and collected, Sun-Woo is asked by his boss to watch his younger girlfriend, citing paranoia she may be cheating on him. Sun-Woo obliges, and it is from here that the film takes its swerve.

Slickly directed with excellent action pieces inserted within a slow and curious pacing, this tale unfolds in front of us with all the exburent vitality of a (good) Tarantino flick. The character development is such that we really are thurst into the one-tracked world of Sun Woo, and this is thanks to a masterful performance of Byung-hun Lee as the stoic Sun Woo. His tranquil demeaneur is broken only by lashes of violence and, in the end, breakdown not only through action but also image.

While the film is full of obvious inspirations and nods to fellow directors (Scorsese, Tarantino, and Woo being obvious) it would be unfair to say this is style over substance. On the contary, Kim has crafted a fine piece of cinema that treads several genre with ease, seeminly trasfusing between scenes as the story unfolds and reels us in.

My only criticism would be the (otherwise flawless) pacing of the first act. Slightly too much time is spent setting up the hook, and it is here that viewers may lose interest, thus turning a phenomental film into simply a very good one.