A Dirty Carnival

Since I have not heard about this film before it was broadcast on the Sundance Channel, I had no expectations. This is a very good to almost excellent film about gangster life in South Korea. It features In-sung Zo in a terrific performance as low level gangster Byong-doo. He meets up with an old friend Min-ho, who is a filmmaker and picks Byong-doo's brains about being a gangster. It spirals from there, as Byong-doo gets more ruthless and violent in his quest for more money and especially power. He also meets up with another old classmate. the pretty Hyun-joo (Bo-yong Lee) and that relationship develops slowly. There is some violence in this, but if you like gangster films I liked this as much as Goodfellas. Really, it is that absorbing and highly recommended.

A true gangster movie. Raw and harsh. None of that over-the-top Hollywood shoot-them-up garbage. The use of bats and knives is so much more menacing than emptying clips of bullets and not hitting anything.

Good character development and good flow to the movie. It left me wondering what happens to all different characters. I wish there was a huge epilogue but that would have made the ending very soft.

I don't remember ever enjoying a gangster movie this much. I am honestly attached to the characters in this movie and wish there is a book out there (not like I could read it). Highly recommend this movie. Last gangster movies this good was probably The Godfather and Scarface.

This South Korean take on a low level gangster with skills is the same old story told in an unbelievably enjoyable fashion. The anti-hero is perfectly ambiguous, at times cold blooded and calculating, at times likable, humble, and human. What's worse, as life's choices come at a price, no matter which good life one chooses, the price is almost too much to bear once ensconced in this dirty employ. The acting was phenomenal, with our lead portraying an impossibly good-hearted, cold-blooded career criminal. The story itself contains all of the requisite elements of a good mob drama. The fights scenes were brutally realistic as opposed to stylistic orchestrations of over-the-top martial arts excellence. The score was wonderfully antagonistic to the realities on the screen. The ending was left open for subtle interpretation, where betrayals and motivations are left for the imagination to fill in. Merci beaucoup.

Evil Eye Reviews

We got to see "A Dirty Carnival" at the Asian-American Film Festival here in San Francisco last week. The movie is truly amazing. The action sequences, the music, and the acting were all fantastic.

I think In-Seong Jo (lead actor) will have a very long career in movies. He'd be perfect for Hollywood movies too. His performance in this role lead me to do some research on his other movies - I'll be renting/buying them soon.

Hopefully, Hollywood will not try to re-make this film. It's perfect as is. American audiences are just going to have to get used to reading subtitles to see great movies.

Let me say one thing. I give it 10 just for the apt realistic ending it is. It is not what I liked one little bit but then I give it to the director for catching us off-guard but this is a South Korean movie and this is EXACTLY what I expect from them - a twist that knocks everyone out. This is good. This is what I look for in a South Korean movie - something different from the usual "Hollywood Crafted Endings" - which I feel most of the time implanted into the movie. I saw the film yesterday night and it was running in my mind every time I woke up in sleep. I never thought that this would have such an impact on me.

About the story - this is a gangster film with lots of great violent fights - I thought initially that those fights reflected the title ...until the ending and then I felt the whole movie was like a gangster carnival.

See the movie - this will hit you...