Pido nunmuldo eobshi

For a couple of years now, I'd worn down my region 3 DVD copy of "No Blood No Tears" and nearly despaired when the thin plastic at the center of the DVD cracked, making it hard to play. Thankfully a Region 1 DVD edition is now available, and we can all enjoy director Ryu Seong Won's fun, Tarantino-esquire crime caper/action comedy.

In a nutshell, "No Blood No Tears" is about two down-and-out women, who spy a chance to make some quick money, enough to change their dead-end lives, inadvertently setting off a six-sided gang war over the missing funds. The film is also noteworthy for the first on-screen appearance of South Korea's most accomplished action director/martial arts choreographer Jeon Du Hong ("Fighter in the Wind, Arahan") as "The Silent Man", a mob enforcer.

Stylishly shot in browns, reds and inky blacks, "No Blood No Tears" only drawbacks are two chase scenes, one on foot, the other a car chase, that are a bit unconvincing. Otherwise, "No Blood No Tears" is really fun stuff. It's definitely worth a try, if nothing else for the impromptu "cage match" between Jeon's "silent man" and Jeong's "Bulldog" a washed up ex-boxer, one of the best fight scenes I've seen in some time.

What this film does have a lot of: blood, cigarette smoke (*cough*), profanity (if you want to learn Korean swear words this is your flick) and double-crossings. All for a bag full of Won.

I prefer to see my fight scenes as if I'm watching a ballet. I want to be able to see the whole stage. "Pido" films its fight scenes as if the viewer was a referee in a boxing match. This frustrated me. Both sexes get equal opportunity pummeling.

Although at times I found the movie too dark to see what exactly was going on, I thought it was well written and well played.

The cast of characters is wide, but like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, it all makes sense in the end. And it's funny, too. The action scenes are...quite intense, and not being knowledgeable about martial arts beyond 'that's cool!', I was really impressed.

All in all, I recommend it!

"No Blood No Tears" was a movie that I was really looking forward to watching. Why? Well because it was a Third Windows Film, and they usually have really good (and often quite remarkable) Asian movies out on the market. Plus "No Blood No Tears" also had Do-yeon Jeon on the cast list (and she was amazing in "The Harmonium in my Memory").

Now having seen this movie, I must admit that I feel somewhat disillusioned, because this movie was nowhere as interesting or exciting as I had hoped. It was like director, Seung-wan Ryoo, wanted to accomplish a lot of things all at once, but didn't fully manage to juggle all the balls he had put up in the air. The movie was trying to tell too many tales at the same time, and it ended up being a rather confusing, stupid and irritating mess of a story. Sure, "No Blood No Tears" had its moments, but in general there was just not enough of a red thread throughout the story to hang on to.

The acting in the movie was actually quite good, and I think that goes for everyone in the movie, because the actors and actresses portrayed their characters quite well and came off as believable characters on the screen.

It was a shame that there was too much going on in the movie at the same time and that the movie was jumping back and forth trying to tie together all the various story lines and characters. It just didn't work out as the director had intended. And that is the reason why I give the movie only a mediocre grade. "No Blood No Tears" could have been a much better movie, had the director not trying to throw so many different elements into one project. Would have been better to focus on a couple of the story lines and tie them together in a more constructed way.

But still, Do-yeon Jeon (playing Su-ji) and Hye-yeong Lee (playing Kyeong-seon) - the two main characters - actually made the movie worth enough to sit through till the end.

Dok-bul is a gangster who runs dog fights. He abuses his girlfriend, Su-ji, and so she decides to steal a bag full of money from him. She gets the help of Kyeong-seon (Hye-yeong Lee), a taxi driver who used to be a safe cracker and has been trying to go straight. The other significant character is Kim Geum-bok, who is generally referred to as "KGB."

While the plot has been compared to "Bound," with the two women leads ganging up on the boyfriend, this film is far less coherent than that film. Basically, everyone is after the money, and the film revolves around a number of very well done Hong Kong-style fight scenes, complete with slow motion with water and/or dirt in the air, wire work, and some swirling camera moves. If you can forgive the simplistic story, these scenes plus the performance of Hye-yeong Lee make the film worth seeing.

Seen on 11/6/2002 at the 2002 Hawaii International Film Festival.