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Lunch » Tags » Movie » Reviews » The City of Violence (2006)

The City of Violence (2006)

1 rating: 3.0

Art House & International movie directed by Seung-wan Ryoo

A group of old friends returns to their hometown for a friend’s funeral. When two of them begin to investigate the suspicious circumstances of his death, they uncover a shocking and deadly conspiracy.

Tags: Movie

Cast: Jae-mo Ahn, Kil-Kang Ahn, Seok-yong Jeong, Deok-hyeon Jo, Doo-hong Jung

Director: Seung-wan Ryoo

1 review about The City of Violence (2006)

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Dramatic moments sandwiched in-between the spin-kicking fight sequences

May 21, 2008

by MzJen_2_review
posted in Movie Hype

Rating:

"The City of Violence" is surprisely good and pays homage to a handful of films and maybe video games. As much as I enjoyed this film there is ultimately much more behind it is probably clear, but the film leaves no time for the formulate narrative, which may disappoint the one hand, since there are hardly any surprises, at the same time one feels but also good hands and can be fully applied to the optical review and musical values of the film.

This story entails Tae-Su (Doo-Hong Jung) who works as a policeman in Seoul, due to the murder of a former schoolmate after many years in his home town returns, only to realize that things have changed fundamentally. There are now brutal youth gangs, the night the roads unsafe and Tae-Su presumed to be stuck behind the murder. Together with another friend of his youth - Pil Ho - makes it to search for the murderer.

This film ultimately reminded me of a revenge story in the cool'70s style, with good martial-arts sequences, which I have seen from Korea. The most notable feature in the great battle on road when the camera is very close to the action on it, and you do not always match the fighting, which sometimes chaotic adrift into something. The music selection is exemplary; it falls between hip-hop, Western scores and jazz is cool, run 93 minutes in length with very crisp, elegant retro style that contributes to the atmosphere. Leading actors Doo-Hong Jung (Tae-Su) can be fully convincing and shows us the best performance of his career. Ultimately, again a film that offers very little that is new, but at least his exemplary quotes parade passed, and guaranteed an audience.

Like I stated before the weak point of this film is the story itself which is told too quickly. Of course, there is also a city gangsters and consequently many situations, with words no longer clear, but hand edges, and billets of action which is exactly why The City of Violence is worth seeing.

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