The Gangster Full Movie Korean

[Phoebe Sibilio]

TheGangster, the Cop, the Devil (Korean: 악인전; Hanja: 惡人傳; RR: Ak-in-jeon"The story of evil people")[a] is a 2019 South Korean action crime film directed by Lee Won-tae. The film stars Ma Dong-seok, Kim Mu-yeol and Kim Sung-kyu. In the film, a gangster and a cop join forces to catch a serial killer, but face challenges from their respective enemies at work.[2][3][4][5]

The film was released theatrically in South Korea on 15 May 2019, and was also screened in the "Midnight Screenings" section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival as well as at the 2019 Fantasia International Film Festival.[6]

After a man's car is hit by a stranger, the stranger kills him as he takes pictures of the damage to submit to his car insurance. Jung Tae-seok is a cop who goes through the crime scene and suspects it to be the work of a serial killer, but his commanding officer does not believe him. Jang Dong-soo is a crime boss who, while on his way home after a meeting, is hit by the same killer, who tries to kill him as well. A brutal fight ensues, leaving both of them injured. Finally, the killer escapes after hitting Dong-soo with his car. Dong-soo is admitted to the hospital, and his henchmen assume that the attack was committed by a rival gang, whom they counter-attack.

Meanwhile, Dong-soo orders his right-hand man, Kwon Oh-sung, to kill his rival Heo Sang-do with the killer's knife that already has traces of blood from the killer's previous victims. An enraged Tae-suk gets into a fight with Dong-soo upon learning what he has done as the killing is confirmed to be the work of a serial killer, causing the case to be transferred to the major case squad. Dong-soo attends Sang-do's funeral; the killer also turns up and informs Sang-do's second-in-command that Sang-do was killed with the killer's knife, but by someone else. When Tae-suk and Dong-soo check the killer's car for any evidence, they are attacked by Sang-do's henchmen. A fight ensues, resulting in the death of Sang-do's right-hand man while in a fight with Tae-suk.

Dong-soo gets him buried and clears the scene. Tae-suk gets assigned to investigate a kidnapping case and, while solving it, spots the killer. A chase ensues, but the killer is able to escape. Through forensic test, Tae-suk discovers the killer to be a missing person. He informs Dong-soo about this and lets him hear a voice clip to confirm the missing person is the killer. Later, Dong-soo helps a high school girl by giving her his umbrella but soon learns that the girl has been murdered and his umbrella was found at the crime scene. Dong-soo and Tae-suk and their men start looking for the killer in the area where the girl was murdered and eventually find him in a car. In the ensuing chase, the killer manages to kill Oh-sung but is finally captured and incapacitated by Dong-soo. Dong-soo takes the killer away to torture and kill him, but Tae-suk tracks them down and crashes his car into the hideout just as Dong-soo is about to kill the killer. Tae-suk hits Dong-soo with his car and arrests the killer.

The police have no conclusive evidence against the killer, Kang Kyung-ho. As a last resort, Tae-suk asks Dong-soo, the sole survivor of the attacks, to testify. Simultaneously, Tae-suk threatens to release a tape of Dong-soo's confession of having Sang-do killed. During Kyung-ho's trial, Dong-soo arrives to testify and provides decisive testimony. Dong-soo successfully predicts the existence of a stab wound on Kyung-ho's body, previously inflicted by Dong-soo during their first encounter. Dong-soo also provides misleading evidence framing Kyung-ho for Sang-do's murder. The court sentences Kyung-ho to death; however, Dong-soo is also arrested due to his illegal activities.

Tae-suk is finally promoted while Dong-soo is sent to the prison where Kyung-ho is kept: The condition which Dong-soo had requested Tae-suk fulfill in exchange for the testimony followed by his arrest. Spotting Kyung-ho, Dong-soo gleefully enters prison. While Kyung-ho is showering, he is confronted by Dong-soo with a rope in his hand and a smile on his face.

The Gangster, the Cop, The Devil was released in South Korea on May 15, 2019. The film will also be shown out of competition in the Midnight Screenings section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.[11]

The film received positive critical reviews. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a score of 97% based on 34 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The critics consensus states, "An odd couple cop thriller with a twist, The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil tells its entertaining story with a blend of humour and hard-hitting ."[12] On review aggregator website Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on seven critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".[13]

Leslie Felperin of The Guardian stated "Although its final act shreds credulity, and the structure is a bit wonky, this pulpy crime thriller from Korea is still a real kick in the head. Like so many of the genre that hail from Seoul and its suburbs, this one punches well above its weight with an inventive reworking of well-worn plot tropes and slick production values."[14] Jessica Kiang of Variety commented "Korea has dominated the midnight-movie/genre slots at international festivals so thoroughly of late that it's hard not to view Lee Won-tae's "The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil" in terms of its shortcomings in comparison to the likes of Train to Busan, The Age of Shadows, The Wailing and so on. But what this fun, slick but slightly forgettable hardboiled actioner lacks in terms of the energy, originality and inventiveness of a true Korean genre classic, it almost makes up for as a showcase for the burly charisma of star Don Lee, aka Ma Dong-Seok."[15] Cary Darling of the Houston Chronicle added "Director/writer Lee Won-tae, for whom this is only his second feature, keeps the pace moving swiftly with this cats-and-mouse game, showing off an energetic sensibility that heralds a new voice on the South Korean film scene. It's no wonder that "The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil", which was invited for a midnight-screening slot at the recently concluded Cannes Film Festival, has been picked up by Hollywood for an English-language remake with Sylvester Stallone producing."[16]

On 5 May 2019, it was announced that Sylvester Stallone and his Balboa Productions partner Braden Aftergood will produce the US remake of The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil, with Ma Dong-seok reprising his role and producing the film under BA Entertainment.[23][24][25]

Ever since I discovered Korean cinema, I've been a fan of the industry's frequent experimentations with genre. Almost every film that comes out of the country seems to be an amalgamation of different tropes but there is one genre that has remained for the most part untouched: the gangster film. When Korean filmmakers decide to make a gangster film, they tend to leave experimentation aside and instead look to emulate some of world cinema's most beloved criminal narratives.

Ja-sung has been undercover for eight years and in that time he's risen to become the right-hand man of Cheong, the number three of Goldmoon, Korea's largest crime syndicate. Following the sudden death of the organization's chairman, a battle for succession erupts. Ja-sung's handler, Captain Kang, is hoping to influence the election outcome and forces a reluctant and increasingly conflicted Ja-sung to continue his assignment a little longer.

At first glance, Park Hoon-jeong's New World seems to be a retread of Infernal Affairs (2002) for its tale of undercover agents with wavering loyalties, but really this latest Korean gangland saga has much more in common with the more sprawling, densely populated sagas such as the Godfather series and the Election films. What all these films have in common is that they deal with succession and feature multiple characters in warring factions, thus examining the structure of crime organizations rather than their principal characters.

New World does give us a primary protagonist in Ja-sung, but he's also just a straight man, a window for us to explore a landscape filled with far more colorful characters. As the mole, Lee Jeong-jae is competent if unremarkable. Save for his fun, mustachioed turn as Popeye in last year's hit The Thieves, I've always found him to be a little gormless and this new turn does little to change my long-standing opinion of him.

Chief among the supporting characters are the ever-reliable performers Choi Min-sik and Hwang Jeong-min. As Kang, Choi is thoroughly grizzled and world-weary. Sadly, the character is one that we've grown accustomed to and while seasoned performer Choi lends suitable gravitas to the part, there's nothing new here to differentiate from what we've seen before. The best of the bunch is Hwang as a colorful and thoroughly unhinged gang boss. It's the showiest performance and he's definitely relishing every moment of it. Though I couldn't catch all the Korean subtleties of his dialogue, his odd accent and loose body language help make his role the most engaging in the narrative.

While the film starts off with a bang and has some fun introducing all of its characters, it quickly settles into a lot of dialogue-based scenes that precede the inevitable fireworks of the contentious battle for succession. Things take a turn for the better after the hour mark once the script dishes out the kind of set pieces we expect. From here on out it doesn't rewrite the textbook, but it pursues its goal with style and aplomb. We may not care a great deal for the characters on screen but this doesn't prevent us from getting sucked into the palpable tension of the narrative's latter stages.

As a gangster film this fares better than last year's Nameless Gangster but fails to reach the heights set by Kim Jee-woon's A Bittersweet Life (2005) and Yu Ha's A Dirty Carnival (2006). Somber and dense, Park's film owes a lot to Johnnie To's Election and its sequel. Just like in those, we are kept at a remove from the gang's many cogs. We are afforded a surface view of the proceedings but we never really get into the nitty gritty of it all, instead cutting away to Ja-sung's slow burning moral dilemma. This decision makes sense as it objectively exposes the cold and brutal nature of the organization but it also slows down the plotting and traps us in a series of uninspiring one on one meetings between mole and handler. However, it's worth it for the electrifying set pieces that all the jockeying eventually leads us to.

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