Friend

Last year, "Chin goo (AKA Friend)" became the highest grossing film in Korean history, surpassing the highly acclaimed "Joint Security Area" and "Shiri". Many observers were curious as to the secret to its success. Was it because of the gangsters? the actors?

The main reason for this movie's phenomenal success was the fact that is was a very good movie about male friendship. In Korean culture, friendship between guys is a very strong relationship. Especially in the city in which the movie is set - Pusan - loyalty and sacrifice for friendship is seen as a very important part of honour.

In this movie, friendship is tested to the limit from beginning to end, as the movie's two main leads (Yoo Oh Sung and Jang Dong Gun) grow from being teenage rebels to big-time gangsters. The catch is, when they grow up, they become very different types of gangsters. One becomes a JOPOK - equivalent to the Korean Mafia, respected by the Korean people for sometimes punishing bad people. And the other becomes more of a thug gangster who kills and steals for fun.

The direction is excellent, but the acting is the element which holds the film together as a whole. The two leads are two very different actors. The first, Yoo Oh-Sung, plays the Mafia gangster and has a very tough-as-nails look and uses method acting skills. The second (arguably Korea's most popular actor right now) chews scenery with Chow Yun Fat-like charisma and striking looks.

if you enjoy gangster movies or movies about friendship, this will be a dream movie for you

Because of his extraordinary handsomeness and popularity among female fans. Jang dong-gun often played romantic parts in most of his previous works. Still his works showed clearly that he made an effort in choosing parts with different characters and played them with a wide range of styles, most notably in 'Medical brother','Love wind love song' and 'All about Eve'.But Dong-su in 'Chin goo'is a totally different genre of roles he used to play the result really shows what a consummated actor Jang dong-gun is.

The movie of course is good. It becomes the most money making film in Korean history and won many awards including Jang dong-gun's best supporting actor in Asian film festival. It is a gangster movie but focus more on the characters and their friendship. Dong-su ,a quite tragic and anti-hero character, with no elegance and glory, is opposite of what audience would expect if they are used to a regular Hong Kong style ganster film. With Jang dong-gun's performance, Dong-su's suppressed rage and sadness were effectively but delicately shown, though ruthless in mob confrontations, the audience would still feel sympathetic and mourn for his inevitable death. Besides Jang dong-gun, everything else is also excellent, the photography, the story, the directing styles, other actors, especailly Yu oh-seong (who also won the best actor award in Asian film festival) who play Jeong-suk.

Friend This is the course of friendship over a twenty year period. Beginning in 1975 we watch as four friends spend some time on what appears to be a summer vacation. Their future looks bright. A few years on as school and life takes its toll the dynamic between them changes and re-changes again as the have to deal with growing up, shattered dreams, decent into crime and drugs and the friendship itself. This is a dark little film that reminded me of some of the work of Martin Scorsese. Life often beats on these guys, from cruelty from their teachers to murder making it hard to get by. The course of these boys lives is not clear nor does it always turn out how we, or they think it will. The cast is excellent from top to bottom. Definitely worth seeking out, though be warned some of the violence has a tough edge to it.

Epic tale of paths that diverge only to be reunited again at some critical moments, "Chin Goo", our "Friend" was a blockbuster at homeland Korea, and one can tell why. The story is attractive: the choices that four friends take on their lives, and the way we end up paying dearly for our mistakes and weaknesses. The construction is somehow western, which has attracted the audiences, all I can say is that I have not seen this movie, but felt it within me. Great comic timing, moving and powerful moments, great, great, GREAT actors, and master directing by an emerging director, Kwak Kyung-Taek, which shows signs of great potential in the future. Loved it all the way, hope to get the DVD as soon as possible.

This move does not cross the east/west cultural barrier very well. I am not sure if non-asians can fully understand the confucian harshness and its effects on the Korean society. Nonetheless, like all great movies, this movie strikes at both the heart and the mind in unison.

It intrigues our intellect with subtleties. It leaves us to wonder why the characters behave the way they do. Why must one friend murder an another? It isn't always clear. Why does one friend chooses an another friend as his favorite? No can be sure. Yet there are reasons.

It moves our emotions because the movie is about the true meaning of friendship. It is loyalty above all else, even to the point of forgiving and understanding a friend who murders an another. Among friends, there is no hatred or bitterness, only forgiveness, understanding, and support.

The acting is second to none. Both the lead and the supporting actors won the best acting awards at an international film festival. When the murderous and treacherous friend becomes himself murdered, it is a profoundly sad moment. Then we realize that we have come to love and care for the characters, despite their flaws, because we come to respect them as human beings capable of deep and profound friendship unlike any other.

Finally, the director did an incredible job of enhancing the allure of the main female character. Her on stage lip lyncing performance as the lead singer of a high school band was shot beautifully. Understandably, all the characters fall in love with her at that moment, and so does the audience.