Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

Posted to www.marxmail.org on June 29, 2006

As a rule of thumb, I do not bother to write reviews of bad films, with the occasional exception made for something like Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator,” with its glorification of the unspeakably evil Howard Hughes. There is even more leniency for independent films, especially those not made in the USA, that at least have the stamp of integrity going for them.

But Laurent Cantet’s “Heading South” was such a real disappointment measured against the director’s aspirations that I feel moved to write about it. After reading the press release, my expectations ran high:

With Human Resources and Time Out, Laurent Cantet has established himself as one of French cinema’s leading screen realists and analysts of social discontent. His third feature — an investigation of sexual tourism — is arguably his most achieved, and certainly his most challenging. The setting is a beach resort in late 70s Haiti, where middle-aged North American women go to be sexually pampered by young black men, rewarding them with economic and quasi-maternal favours. “Welcome to Paradise,“ says the resort’s alpha female Ellen (Charlotte Rampling) to newcomer Brenda (Karen Young), but it’s clear that this is anything but paradise. Outside the hotel’s artificial bubble, the Duvalier regime is in power, and it can’t be long before Legba (Menothy César), the young man favoured by both Ellen and Brenda, falls foul of the all-powerful Macoute militia.

Cantet’s decision to make middle-aged women the symbol of colonialism, racism and sexual exploitation could not be more wrong-headed. Rather than appearing as predators, they seem more like desperate and pathetic souls out of a Tennessee Williams play. Furthermore, there is an element of puritanism that makes sexual pleasure, even if purchased on the market, an evil roughly on a par with Duvalierism. The young male prostitutes are depicted as being caught in a vise made up on one side by lonely women on a vacation and Ton Ton Macoutes on the other. This is unbalanced, to say the least.

“Heading South” marks a real drop-off from the achievements of Cantet’s first film “Human Resources,” which I described as “one of the finest movies ever made about the labor movement.”

His next film “Time Out” signaled that Cantet was no longer interested in making straightforward films about social problems but was determined to reveal deeper existential truths, as they put it in educated circles. The protagonist of “Time Out” is an unemployed French executive who is ashamed to tell his family that he has lost his job. He puts on a suit each morning, kisses them goodbye and proceeds to drive around all day killing time. But this is not a simple dramatization of the plight described in Louis Uchitelle’s “The Disposable American”. Cantet uses this situation as a launching pad for a semi-Hitchcockian crime thriller in which the hero cons old friends and business associates into making bogus investments. The Village Voice, long addicted to “subverting” anything as boring as the topic of unemployment, heartily endorsed Cantet’s progress:

“It would be reductive to read Time Out as a parable on the shame of unemployment. Vincent rejects several career opportunities throughout, legitimate and otherwise. A return to the workforce is inconceivable, the ultimate defeat. More to the point, his mounting anxiety notwithstanding, Vincent has earnestly reinvented himself as a petit-bourgeois life-actor, exulting in the thrill of spinning–and existing within–a fiction. But lying is desperately hard work–a bitter irony that does not elude the film.”

Yes, that’s what the world needs, doesn’t it: displays of reinvention and bitter irony. Much more “complex” than boring old tales of men made redundant by the forces of capitalist concentration. That would be so retro, so 1930s.

“Heading South” is based on a collection of short stories by Haitian author Dany Laferrière, for whom sex seems to occupy the place that money occupied in “Das Capital,” based on the evidence of this collection and other works such as “How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired” and “Why Must a Black Writer Write About Sex?” I guess the answer to the last question is that it must sell books that get made into screenplays. In the press notes for “Heading South,” Laferrière states, “We’re dealing with a small group of very rich people who can buy anything, or who think they can buy anything, people or objects, and with others who are ready to sell the only thing they possess, their youth and their body.”

Now I don’t want to sound like I am insensitive to the suffering of the Haitian people, but on a scale of 1 to 10, the problem of spinster schoolteachers from New England (the character played by Charlotte Rampling in a losing effort) paying for sex on the Haitian beaches ranks something like minus five.

In the final scene of “Heading South,” a voice-over of the female characters (plucked clumsily from Laferrière’s prose) proclaims her desire to sexually conquer other black bodies throughout the Caribbean, from Guadalupe to Cuba. Granted that sexual tourism is a problem in Cuba, one might think that it is more than compensated for by free education, health-care and guaranteed employment. I can imagine a hard-hitting film about the problem of sexual tourism, but this film is not one of them–except as an example of what not to do.

Now if I were to make a movie about Haiti, I’d adapt Russell Banks’ “Continental Drift,” one of the finest novels of the 1980s. This is the story of a New Hampshire working-class guy named Bob Dubois who turns to transporting Haitian immigrants ‘illegally’ into the United States out of economic desperation. Although Russell Banks is not Haitian or Black for that matter, his portrait of the dirt-poor Haitian émigré Vanise Dorsinville, who leaves Haiti with her infant son and 13-year-old nephew Claude, is one of the more memorable I have seen in modern fiction.

The book has a cinematic sweep that in the right hands would turn into a “Grapes of Wrath” for the modern age. That, of course, would be too much to expect.

"Company" is an icy-cold saga of organized crime in Mumbai. Like "A Bittersweet Life" that also was shown at this year's Asian Film Festival, the tragedy flows from a gangster's decision to act morally. In the topsy-turvy world of the mob, showing mercy is a tragic flaw.

At the beginning of the film, we meet Chandu (Vivek Oberoi) and his gang. Until recently, they have been involved with petty crimes in the Mumbai slums. But because of Chandu's obvious charisma and street smarts, he is recruited by a big-time gangster named Malik (Ajay Devgan). Just as India's booming legitimate business has created a demand for labor, so has an increase in criminal activity led to people like Chandu being wooed like MBA's.

The film traces Chandu's rapid rise in Malik's syndicate that is always referred to as "the Company". Both his mother (Seema Biswas) and his wife (Manisha Koirala) understand that his "job" is with the mob, but they accept it as a way of deliverance out of poverty. When Chandu shows his mother around the new and well-appointed apartment he has purchased for her, it is obvious that she is proud of her son, even if his success was achieved through violence.

Unlike other films in this genre ranging from "Godfather" to "Goodfellas," there is very little attention paid in "Company" to the mechanics of crime. Indeed, it is not very clear how Malik's operation actually generates income although old-fashioned extortion seems to be at the heart of it. After the gang relocates to Hong Kong, we do see a number of big businessmen being executed after they refuse to heed Malik's demands for a payoff.

Chandu goes along every step of the way until he is ordered by Malik to carry out a hit on a local politician requested by his corrupt rival in parliament. At the very last minute, when Chandu discovers that the target's children will be killed along him in a kind of collateral damage, he backs out. In this world, however, such a decision has consequences. Eventually, Chandu's fears that he will be killed himself for refusing to carry out orders leads him to carry out a preemptive strike against an associate, even though the gangster was simply trying to act as an intermediary. This act generates a spiraling series of attacks and counter-attacks that will remind you of the conclusion of the Godfather movies, but without making any effort to represent either side as more justified than the other. Coppola's mafia operates on the basis of some kind of feudal warrior ethic, but director Ram Gopal Varma looks at his protagonists more in terms of the business world with its emphasis on the bottom line. As Malik and Chandu carry out their bloody vendetta, they keep mourning the fact that the Company is not what it used to be.

Among the legitimate businesses that the Company has sunk its tentacles into is the Indian film industry. A good part of the film describes the efforts of Malik to cultivate ties with directors and actors in "Bollywood" productions. He seems motivated as much by fandom as he is by a desire to make money.

As it turns out, screenwriter Jaideep Sahni was simply reporting on developments then taking place in India as the South China Morning Post reported on October 8, 2003:

India's 20-billion-rupee (HK$ 3.4 billion) Bollywood film business is in the grip of organised crime. That oft-repeated rumour and accusation was finally given credence through the conviction by a Mumbai court last week of millionaire diamond merchant and film financier Bharat Shah.

"The police have been saying for many years that the underworld has made inroads into the Hindi film industry," said Maharashtra State Deputy Chief Minister Chhagan Bhujbal. "That stands proved now."

Shah was sentenced to one year's imprisonment for concealing information about an extortion racket targeting top film personalities run by an overseas crime syndicate. But since he had already served 14 months in jail, he walked free.

He was acquitted, however, of the more serious charge of being linked to the Mumbai gangster Chhota Shakeel (Little Shakeel), now operating from the Pakistani port city of Karachi. Shah's producer and an assistant were found guilty of underworld links and jailed for six years.

Although few people have met Shakeel, his shadow loomed large over the dramatic, 15-month-long trial. The prosecution, for instance, produced 32 taped telephone conversations between Shakeel and Bollywood notables, including Shah.

Unable to refute the taped evidence, Shah's lawyer told the judge: "Several film personalities have talked to Chhota Shakeel over the telephone. What I am trying to say is that everybody in the film industry is acting under pressure."

India's film business is the world's largest, annually producing around 900 feature films. More than a quarter of these are churned out by Bollywood's dream factories, mostly dewy-eyed melodramas packed with romance, action and lavish musical numbers.

Until recently, however, the government denied Bollywood the official status of an industry, depriving filmmakers of bank loans and keeping corporate investors away.

Producers had little option but to borrow money at high rates from shady businessmen. But a box-office slump in the late 1980s made access to even this kind of finance difficult and brought in organised crime. Gangsters jumped at the opportunity to rub shoulders with film stars.

It is to the credit of the Asian Film Festival curators that they have selected Indian films that are trying to break new ground. Unlike the typical Bollywood film, the four selections have "no singing, no dancing, no mercy." Director Ram Gopal Varma is an outspoken advocate of shaking up the Indian film industry and understands that there is no problem learning from the West, as the occasion arises. When Time Magazine asked him,"What's the future for Bollywood?," he responded:

There's going to be a massive change. A lot of old filmmakers are going to go out of business. Anyone who looks at a film as a formula of one song, two comedy scenes and three action scenes, who doesn't look at the totality of the film, is lost now. Anyone who follows the old prudish traditions, of showing a bush's shaking leaves when they mean people are f—ing behind a tree, is gone. And anyone who doesn't follow the West is gone. For many people in the business, their pride won't let them. But following the West is not surrendering. Following the West, the best of the West, is following originality. Western innovation is superior, and I think we're just beginning to understand that. With my films, I'm targeting the urban multiplexes, the sophisticated media-savvy young crowd. Frankly, I couldn't give a f— for the villages.

For the average cinemaphile, Indian film means either Bollywood epics like "Lagaan" or art movies like "Water." Three screeners graciously made available to me from Subway Cinema, the main organizers of this year's Asian Film Festival in New York, are exceptions to this rule. They are all meant mainly for the local Indian market and address "law and order" themes such as the kind made familiar in Hong Kong cinema. Indeed, the promo page for this film on the festival website describes it as "No Singing, No Dancing, No Mercy."

Last night I watched "Ek Hasina Thi" (There Was a Beautiful Woman) and can happily report that, as is the case with already reviewed Korean, Japanese and Chinese films from this year's festival, India is maintaining the level of excellence I have learned to expect from this part of the world.

Sarika (Urmila Matondkar) is a single woman working as a travel agent in Mumbai. Obviously wary of men in general, she threatens to report her next door neighbor to his wife when he makes unwanted advances on her.

When the handsome Karan (Saif Ali Khan) shows up the next day to book a flight to Frankfurt, she is just as put off by his advances. She refuses a dinner date with him, but finally relents to have tea. He is not easily dissuaded, however, and pursues her relentlessly until she finally breaks down and invites him up to her apartment. In no time at all, they become lovers. But in the back of her mind, there must be a sense that this extremely macho and extremely wealthy man is not to be trusted. However, as is usually the case when you fall in love, you leave your critical faculties at the door.

A couple of weeks into their relationship, Karan asks Sarika to entertain a friend who will be in Mumbai for business. Since he will be out of town himself, he needs somebody to make him feel at home. After Karan's "friend" arrives at her apartment, she makes him a cup of tea which he does not even finish. He announces that he has a business appointment and will see her later in the day.

Up until this point, the film is a fascinating study of sexual politics in contemporary Mumbai, but it shifts gear immediately after Sarika turns on her television an hour or so after the stranger has left, only to discover that he was actually a hitman who was killed during a job.

As she watches the news report on the killing, Karan phones her and pleads with her to get rid of the man's suitcase. She is too much in love and too much under this domineering male's thumb to question him or to even go to the cops. In fact, the cops have come to her. As she is walking down the steps to dump the suitcase, she is confronted by a group of Mumbai's finest who haul her down to the station after discovering that the suitcase is filled with guns and other incriminating evidence.

After Sarika is arrested as an accomplice to the hitman, Karan sends his lawyer to the jail in order to persuade her to leave his name out of it. We soon learn that Karan is a big-time gangster himself and will sacrifice her to stay out of jail. After they convince her that she will do less than a month for the offense if she pleads guilty, Sarika is shocked to discover that she must spend seven years in prison with no chance of early release.

At this point, the film becomes an Indian version of the classic women behind bars flicks of the 1950s, but made far more interesting by director Sriram Raghavan's decision to avoid all the clichés associated with this genre. Suffice it to say that Sarika discovers that she was betrayed by Karan and his lawyer and plots revenge.

From the moment she escapes, the film hurdles forward at a breakneck pace. You feel tremendous sympathy for the wronged Sarika and cheer for her as she foils gangsters and cops alike. As is the case with the Korean "A Bittersweet Life," the Indians have a far better ability to make hair-raising thrillers and for probably a lot less money than the supposed experts in Hollywood.

Interestingly enough, despite his obvious flair for action melodrama, Raghavan told interviewers at rediff.com that two of his favorite directors are Abbas Kiarostami and Krzysztof Kieslowski, who are best known for making art films. One can't possibly imagine Jerry Bruckheimer paying tribute to such artists, let alone having seen their work. I suppose that is part of the reason that Hollywood stinks so bad.

After halting its anti-North propaganda, South Korea's Unification Ministry has agreed to begin showing some North Korean news programs on its own Web site for local audiences. In recent weeks, the two Koreas have established a new telephone hotline linking their militaries.

North and South Korean athletes will march together under one flag next month at the Athens Olympics. And South Korean economic investment in the North, once mostly limited to a tourism resort near the border region of Mount Kumgang, is now expanding into industry.

–Washington Post, "As Tensions Subside Between Two Koreas, U.S. Strives to Adjust; Thaw Strains South's Alliance with Washington", July 25, 2004

Given these new realities, it should not come as a big surprise that South Korean movies have begun to look at the North in a new way. Evidence of that was on display in "Welcome to Dongmakgol," a film set during the Korean War and shown as part of this year's excellent Asian Film Festival in New York.

Like this year's "Joyeux Noël", "Welcome to Dongmakgol" is a pacifist film about fraternization. What makes it unusual is that it reconciles the opposing sides of the Korean War, a plot that would have been inconceivable in decades past. It also depicts the U.S, as an intrusive bully bent on causing civilian casualties to achieve its geopolitical ends. Obviously, the audience might make the connection with a more recent war as first-time director Park Kwang-hyun does:

It was through the Iraq war that I saw the cruelest violence of war. In this film, I don't favor one side over another and do not hate anyone. I just want people who create war and violence to know the most important thing. Even in the smallest villages, which can easily be ignored, people live there who have hot blood running through their hearts.

–The Desert Sun (Palm Springs), January 11, 2006

Park's film is focused less on individuals than it is on the dynamics between three separate groups: a band of four North Korean soldiers trying to return home, two South Korean soldiers who have become detached from their units (one is a deserter traumatized by his role in blowing up a bridge filled with war refugees), and the bumpkins in a remote mountain village that they stumble across. In addition, there is an American flyer whose plane has crashed nearby and is being nursed by the innocent villagers, who have no idea that a war is going on.

When the soldiers discover each other in Dongmakgol, they face each other off in the village square like gangsters in a John Woo movie. Since they have run out of bullets, there is not much damage that can be done. Unfortunately, they are still armed with hand grenades, one of which–assumed to be a dud–is tossed in the direction of a small corn silo. When it blows up, the corn is transformed into popcorn which falls into the mouths of the always cheerful villagers, who always see the good side of things and of people. It must be mentioned at this point, if it is not glaringly obvious already, that Park is heavily influenced by magical realism. This is a film in which butterflies make frequent appearances and where the village madwoman serves as a kind of one-person Greek chorus commenting on the insanity of war (yes, the film also evokes Philippe de Broca's "King of Hearts".)

Acknowledging their role in destroying the village's corn, the soldiers volunteer to dig potatoes and pitch in with other chores. Early on they exchange their uniforms for peasant togs, an act that prepares them psychologically for dumping their war-induced xenophobia. Eventually they begin to see other without prejudice and even band together in an ultimately self-sacrificing act on the village's behalf.

To the surprise of the film industry, "Welcome to Dongmakgol" became the fourth-highest grossing movie in Korean history and was their Oscar submission last year.

Although it is a failure in cinematic terms, another South Korean release echoes reconciliation themes. When I saw a critic's screening of "Typhoon," the most expensive film in South Korean history, a couple of months ago, I was disappointed by this plodding sea-going espionage thriller. It is the tale of a North Korean who has become a pirate bent on taking revenge against both the North and the South for their role in denying his family refuge and sending them back to the North. Only he and his sister, children at the time, escape a deadly ambush by North Korean soldiers. He becomes a pirate and she becomes a prostitute and drug addict in Russia. The film centers on his plotting and attempts to reunite with his sister.

After the brother buys radioactive material from the Russian mob that he plans to strew across the South from helium balloons controlled by radio transmitters, the only thing that stands in his way is a band of hardy commandos led by a South Korean version of James Bond that storms the pirate's ship during the typhoon of the century. If this all sounds rather cartoonish, it is because it is. Of note is the final hand-to-hand combat between the pirate and the commando on the sinking ship. When the hero has finally killed the bad guy, he says that in another life the two would have been good friends–in other words, the same exact message of "Welcome to Dongmakgol". Like this film, it depicts the U.S. as little more than a malevolent intruder into Korean affairs.

A February 12, 2006 South China Morning Post article titled "Koreans embrace reelpolitik" sums up the cultural and political sea change now taking place:

Basically, North Koreans were evil. With Korea's democratisation, things changed. A screenplay censorship body, part of the powerful Public Ethics Committee, was phased out in the 1980s, granting filmmakers greater freedoms.

The breakthrough film was 1990's The Southern Guerillas. Although they meet a nasty fate, the film featured partisans in Korean war-era South Korea. The main characters with whom the audience identified were all North Korean. The second landmark was Shiri. Unlike The Southern Guerillas, it portrayed modern-day North Koreans. They were shown with not just humanity, but sympathy – even glamour.

The film received the co-operation of the South's National Intelligence Agency. Noted film buff Kim Jong-il, North Korea's leader, reportedly acquired a pirate copy.

The changing portrayal of North Koreans on screen reflects changing perceptions of their brother nation among South Koreans.

As late as the 1970s, North Koreans were depicted in school textbooks as horned devils. Propaganda was eased after democratisation; further major changes took place after long-time opposition leader Kim Dae-jung won the presidency in 1997.

Seoul toned down its confrontational policies against North Korea, opting instead for engagement.

"Since Korea democratised, the true facts about North Korea have become known. We know that their economy is on the verge of collapse, and we have overcome the haunting fear of the Korean war," said Kim Geun-tae, a parliamentarian with the ruling Uri Party.

"I cannot emphasise too much the importance of transparency in South Korea," Mr Kim, a contender for the party's leadership and a future presidential hopeful, continued. "North Korea is no longer our competitor. We have out-competed them, and now it is time to move forward."

Takashi Miike is not only one of Japan's most interesting film directors; he is also one of the most prolific. Since 1991 he has directed more than 60 films for theater and television. Like South Korea's Kim Jee-Woon, Miike works in just about every genre imaginable. In fact, Miike demonstrated a real affinity for the Korean director by remaking "The Quiet Family," a black comedy about a suicide epidemic at a bed-and-breakfast, as "The Happiness of the Katakuris." He has also directed "Dead or Alive," a gangster film that shares the baroque excess of Kim Jae-Woon's "A Bittersweet Life." These are two directors who have little use for "Less is More" esthetics.

When I learned that Miike's latest film was made for children, I was eager to see how this master of the macabre would put his own particular stamp on the work. Shown at this year's Asian Film Festival, "The Great Yokai War" can be grouped with "Fellowship of the Ring", "The Chronicles of Narnia," and "The Wizard of Oz." It is the classic tale of a humble hero, often a child, who goes off on a quest against Evil.

The hero of "The Great Yokai War" is Tadashi (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a 10 year old boy who has been chosen to become the Kirin Rider, a warrior that will save mankind from the forces of darkness led by the wizard Kato (Etsushi Toyokawa) and his disciple Agi (Chiaki Kuriyama), a slinky woman in skin-tight white clothing who bears a striking resemblance to the robot in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis." Indeed, Kato's realm shares the Faustian machine-age qualities of Lang's dystopia. Kato has devised a way to transform the dead bodies of 'yokai' (benign ancient demons) into mechanical monsters that look like those that took over the planet in the Terminator films. As might be obvious at this point, "The Great Yokai War" is a pastiche of Hollywood films, but transformed into something uniquely Miiki-esque.

The first yokai Tadashi meets is a 'sunekosuri', a small, cuddly, furry creature that looks like a second cousin to the Mogwai in "Gremlins". Through most of the film, Tadashi walks about with the sunekosuri wrapped across his head like a fur hat. It is an image that expresses Miike's characteristically deadpan humor and one that subtly subverts the pomposity of this genre, so much in display in the Tolkien films.

As a group, the yokai have the same sort of endearing clownishness as Dorothy's henchmen in "The Wizard of Oz." They include a red-furred sprite who even looks like the Cowardly Lion and a geisha-like creature whose neck extends from her body like a huge snake. When her head finally comes within an inch of Tadashi's face, she licks his face erotically, another sly touch from Miike.

If all this were not enough, "The Great Yokai War" is filled with images that spring from the surrealist classics of Jean Cocteau or Luis Buñuel. The yokai include a speaking door with a mouth and two legs as well as an umbrella man that looks like–well–an umbrella man. Not only do these creatures appear otherworldly, they often use the same kind of pretzel logic as the characters in "Alice in Wonderland." This certainly is a children's film, but one that is not afraid to be disturbing. This, of course, was what made the Grimm brothers' stories so memorable. As opposed to the homogenized pap coming out of Dreamworks, Asian film once again demonstrates its superiority.

Kim Jee-Woon is one of South Korea's more interesting directors, working in different genres at a uniform level of excellence. His "A Tale of Two Sisters" is a ghost story in the "Ring" tradition, while "The Quiet Family" is a black comedy about a Korean version of the Addams family that moves to the country to run a bed and breakfast. When guests feel inspired one after another to commit suicide in the house, they work overtime to conceal the bodies.

"A Bittersweet Life," his latest, was included in this year's Asian Film Festival in New York. It is a gangster noir in the John Woo tradition that includes familiar elements: a mob enforcer with a conscience, vendettas that spiral out of control and choreographed fight scenes.

In the topsy-turvy world of the Korean underworld, tragedy ensues when a hero decides to act morally. A tragic flaw in this world is not murder, but the refusal to commit murder. Like Huck Finn, who decides to help a runaway slave in defiance of all that is "good" in a slave society, the hero of "A Bittersweet Life" only decides to buck the system as a last resort.

Sun-woo (Byung-hun Lee) is a mob enforcer who has been ordered by his boss Kang (Yeong-cheol Kim), the owner of a hotel called "La Dolce Vita" (!), to keep an eye on his young girl-friend, an accomplished cellist, while he is out of town. If she cheats on him, he must kill her and the lover.

In keeping with Sun-woo's tightly-wound and taciturn character, he does not reveal his growing fondness for the boss's girl-friend either to her or to himself. Despite his rather soft features, he is the quintessential warrior who lives only to serve his boss and to fight. When he eventually discovers the lover at the girl-friend's house, he cannot bring himself to killing them. He only beats up the lover and warns them never to see each other again. To his astonishment, she lashes out at him even though he has spared her life. Since he has never been in love himself, nor even had much experience with women, his surprise is understandable.

When Kang discovers that his underling has disobeyed his orders, he sends out a hit squad to get rid of him. This leads to an escalating series of show-downs that finally culminates in a rousing gun-battle that will more than satisfy any fan of this genre. The main problem with "A Bittersweet Life" is the inability of the main character to express any emotion beyond a desire for revenge. Unlike some of John Woo's memorable heroes, usually played by the gifted Yun-Fat Chow, Sun-woo is a one-dimensional killing machine. In a John Woo film, a relationship would have developed between the enforcer and the girl-friend but Kim Jee-Woon seems much more interested in combat than in human relationships.

This is not to say that such relationships do not occur. There are strong ties between Sun-woo and the boss Kang, who functions as a kind of father figure. At the climax of the film, as Sun-woo holds a gun to the chest of Kang, there is a moment when it seems that he will spare his life out of filial feelings. That does not last, however.

In the concluding moments of the film, Soon-woo reflects on his life: "One morning, the disciple had a dream and woke up in tears. The master came into his room and asked, 'Did you have a sad dream?' The disciple replied, 'No, I did not have a sad dream' The master then asked, 'Then why do you weep in such sorrow?' The disciple replied, 'Because it is a dream that will never come true.'"

If "A Bittersweet Life" ever makes it to a theater in your city, it is definitely worth seeing. Although Hollywood has an undeserved reputation for making action movies, Asian cinema is the place to go for sheer visceral entertainment.