The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil
Director- Lee Won-tae
Cast- Ma Dong-seok, Kim Mu-yeoi, Kim Sung-kyu
Country of Origin- South Korea
Distributor - Well Go USA
Number of Discs - 1
Reviewed by - Tyler Miller
Date- 10/23/2019
Jang (Ma Dong-seok) is a big time gangster who is trying to go straight and start running a smoother business. After a meeting goes soar, Jang decides to drive himself home. While doing so, he gets into an accident. When he leaves his car to check on the damage, he is attacked by the other driver, who is actually a serial killer (Kim Sung-Kyu) on the loose. Jang fights off his attack, and barely manages to escape alive. While in the hospital he is visited by a cop named Jung (Kim Mu-yeoi). Jung has been trying to tie the series of car accident related murders into a serial killer case, and so far only Jang has lived to tell what happened. As the body count starts to rise, Jang and Jung join forces to catch the killer at any cost.
The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil (2019) is another shiny example of quality genre filmmaking in Korea. In some ways marketed as an action vehicle for Ma Dong-seok, who recently gained international attention with 2016’s Train to Busan. The finished film is an exciting mix of horror, action, and black comedy. Like Sergio Leone’s masterpiece, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966), and Kim Jee-Woon’s The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008), This is a story with three larger than life characters that leads to an action packed climax.
Director and writer Lee Won-tae (Man of Will) crafts a solid screenplay with plenty of connections to the levels of corruption in the lives of all three main characters. This leads to their undoing, with the serial killer’s being the most satisfying to the audience. The levels of brutal comedy and darkness are downplayed and in the hands of a different director, I could see this turning into I Saw The Devil. But the more easy going nature of the film makes it kind of refreshing and easy to watch.
The action beats are strong with a crazy third act car chase. The fist fights are bold and gritty, and even some of the stabbing have a fair amount of gore. The whole production is dripping with style with some cool colored gel lights and expressive synths.
In terms of characters, the whole cast gets time to breath and feel at home in their roles. There is a natural comradery between the cops and gangster during their manhunt. There is not much difference between the two, and the movie reminds of us this fact plenty of times without being preachy.
Well Go USA brings The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil to Blu-ray with a handsome 1080p transfer. There is some motion blur during the car chases, but this seems to be a production error, not the discs’. The 5.1 Korean DTS-HD Master Audio is clean with no pops or hiss. The dialogue and fx work is especially polished. English subtitles are included.
In terms of extras, there are two featurettes on the film’s production. One is entitled “Making of” with the second being a two minute piece on The characters. Rounding out the disc is a trailer gallery of upcoming Well Go USA releases.
While this isn’t a new classic of Korean cinema, It was a movie that I was completely sucked into. It was wild, funny, and a hell of a lot of fun. Highly recommended.
