Great mobster flick

When I watched "A Dirty Carnival" (Dalkomhan insaeng) at the Chicago International Film Fesitival, I knew I had to sit down and write a review about it. Let me just say the theater was applauding at the end of this movie more than I had ever experienced in a public theater. I even heard a guy behind me while were leaving the theater say "This was better than Scarface!"

You know what, I think I'm with him on that account. I hadn't heard much about this movie until earlier Saturday when I read another review in Variety. Little did I know was that the first South Korean film I ever was going to watch was one of the best gangster films I've ever seen (and I've watched all the classics from aforementioned Scarface, The Godfather, Goodfellas etc.).

Sang-Chul, the protagonist gangster in the film was played great by the youthful looking Yoon-Jae Moon. During the course of the film we go through random sorts of thug characters, as well as Sang-Chul's past as he re-unites with his peers from his school years. This is when you could see his struggle between which life either as a deviant or regular civilian he should choose. There's also a love interest that could have been horribly pulled off if director Ha Yu pulled the typical cliche and predictable, but he never did. A twist is thrown in as one of his schoolyard peers returns to his life wanting to make a film about gangsters, so who not better to ask than Sang-Chul? The making of a movie within the movie worked on so many levels because we could see Sang-Chul struggling between his family, his work, and his new-found friends and love interest pulling him in seperate directions, while it was all being filmed in right front of him. This not only provided a great story throughout, but also uneasy tension, action and even some humor.

My favorite parts of the film were the fight action sequences that were long almost too grueling to get though, yet I couldn't keep my eyes off of the screen. Only once in the film did I see a gun being pulled out, and that was for a split second. Most of the gangsters fought with bats, pipes or shashimi knives due to gang code of conduct. It definately made for a more entertaining watch in that aspect.

10/10