A nice little Korean film that reminds me of the plot of Taken, but better. A reclusive pawn shop owner befriends a neighborhood girl who needs a friend (mother is a prostitute and no father). Unfortunately, the mothers work gets her involved with drug running and gets the girl kidnapped as collateral to collect on stolen merchandise. Fortunately for the girl, our pawn shop guy is a former special ops kind of guy who you don't want to mess with. Mayhem and brutal vengeance follow in the effort to save the girl. A clear reminder that racism is universal (all the stupid people here are Chinese and all the smart ones are Korean) as well as retributive violence. It seems that in films like this, with good v. evil guys, the ego of the bad guys always gets them shot. Maybe this is not and intentional cultural statement by the filmmakers on how power corrupts one's sense of place in society, but watch enough of these films and you begin to see them reflecting (on an exaggerated scale in most cases) the mores of society. Imagine a humble crime boss. Would probably be wildly successful since they would not overestimate their abilities, and would make for a box office flop of a film.
3 stars (out of 5)
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