Chainataun

Wow... This was so close to being a great film. The first two thirds are riveting, as we follow the life of a young woman raised in a terrible world of violent crime. It builds nicely, until the final third, when the story loses all momentum and tension. The director allows the movie to slow to a crawl... ponderously marching to an almost inevitable conclusion. The pace evaporates. The plots becomes predictable. The mood becomes even more dour. If the final 30 minutes had built to a crescendo, "Coin Locker Girl" would have been a 9 or a 10. As it stands, it is a good movie... nothing more.

I loved this movie overall. The tone it sets from the beginning and the ambiguity of the plot is what kept me glued to the tv for *almost* this entire movie. I say almost because I found myself, towards the end, getting ready for it to conclude. The last 15 minutes of the movie feel like 30, but I am also more than likely partial because I expected a big fight scene/shoot out "Ballerina-esque" type ending and that is simply just not this movie. There is violence and action, but it is few and far between. The ending is beautiful and very well acted, I just went into it with the wrong mindset. I would 100% recommend this movie have added it to increasingly growing list of amazing Korean cinema to come out the last 25-30+ years.

Kim Go-eun plays Ma Il-young who as a baby was left in a coin locker at a train station and found by vagrants who look after her. As a child she is taken by a corrupt police officer to Ma Woo-hee played by Kim Hyo-seo to pay of his gambling debt. Woo-hee is also called Mother by the people who work for her as she has taken them all in, although the moneylending business she runs is also in the trade of organ harvesting when people cannot pay. Go-eun happily carries out her violent roll in this set up until she meets Park Seok-hyun played by Park Bo-gum and instead of dealing with him develops feelings for him. Then the situation spirals out of control with friend fighting friend in a bloody, violent climax. It is quite violent and dark and once it starts doesn't let up but excellent drama about a desperately sad underbelly of people.

This was on of these movies that convinced me to go through Korean cinema again. A very interesting and original plot where nothing leads as you would have expected and many bodies will fall until you reach the end of this personal crusade. I needed few minutes to calm myself down after I finished watching the movie. I thought they can't surprise me anymore and here you go. Personal is an important word here. Whenever I watch Hollywood made movie I can never get that feeling, i can rarely relate to characters so much that by the end I feel like a character in the movie.

Characters are interesting and believable. The storyline is also interesting and, although I've never been part of a loan shark operation, what happens in the story makes sense and is also believable.

The movie kept my interest throughout and I was definitely rooting for the main character, who definitely had more than her fair share of hardship and misery in her life.

Although she's a loan shark gang member, her basic humanity shows throughout and made me like and sympathize with her. She was fundamentally decent and human, in a good way, throughout the movie.

Strong ensemble cast also helped establish the believability and credibility of the characters.

One of the best movies I've seen in a while.