Truly Dreadful Film

the audience applauded

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

Movie: The City of Violence (A)Rating: 4/5This is a film action buffs (like me) should definitely watch, because it offers a lot of well choreographed and excellently shot action sequences. The last action block is extremely mind-blowing and the moves are classic & epic in themselves. There's hardly an action scene that fails to leave an impact. Indeed, every action scene had me dropping my jaw. If I see this film again, the action would be a reason enough.But that's where it all stops.THE CITY OF VIOLENCE or JJAKPAE does have stylish and mesmerizing action scenes to leave enough of an impression on the viewer. But it suffers in the writing department. The film has some really uninteresting moments, which made me difficult to finish the film in once. But when I recalled the excellent action clip I had seen from the film on YouTube, I decided to give it a full watch today finally. And I did enjoy it, though not totally. The last 30 minutes, however save the film as in this runtime itself the film ends up entertaining to the core. Another thing that's praiseworthy is that Ryoo Seung-wan, who also stars in the lead role along with veteran action director Jung Doo- hong, has avoided unnecessary violence. Whatever we see is just integral to the story and not a single violent shot seems pointless. But both the actors are just fine when it comes to their performances; The latter excels in the fights and the energy of the duo is enough to make you enjoy this badly written action entertainer. Rest of the cast is just average in performances. The cinematography styles in certain portions are quite innovative and have a classic feel. This film could disappoint you if you like story-driven stuff.But if you're an action lover and can ignore the uneven writing and some unimpressive performances, this film is made for you. THE CITY OF VIOLENCE is not the best action film, but it does have some of the best action scenes ever.

THE CITY OF VIOLENCE is a solid action film with an engaging, gangster-focused storyline and plenty of interesting characters to keep the viewer's attention. Things kick off with a brutal murder in the street, which leads to the victim's childhood friends reuniting to reminisce about the old days. We learn that each character has gone his own way: one's now a small-time gangster, another a cop. The gradual pursuit and uncovery of the truth eventually leads to violent recriminations for one and all.Interestingly enough, the mystery-style plotting and gangster window-dressing eventually wear off until by the end the film becomes a riotous, ass-kicking extravaganza that bears more than a passing resemble to the infamous 'Crazy 88' action scene in KILL BILL: VOLUME 1. It works: the director contributes plenty of stylish flourishes and the action is well-filmed through, from huge, sprawling street fights early on to the epic bad-assery of the climax. It truly is an excellent ending, lifting what's come before and proving itself a film more than capable of holding its own against bigger productions.

Perhaps more than any other genre in cinema, Asian martial arts movies are an acquired taste. It's not just that they have so many conventions and tropes you have to accept. It's that the better they are, the more their stories reflect the unique social and cultural aspects of their countries of origin, the less appealing they are to someone who just wants to watch people getting karate chopped. The City of Violence is a pretty good Asian martial arts movie. Whether you enjoy it depends on how much of a taste you've acquired for that sort of thing.Set in Korea, Taetsoo (Doo-hong Jung) is a police officer in Seoul who gets word that one of his boyhood friends is dead and returns to his hometown to look into it. Wangjae (Kil-Kang Ahn) was the toughest and boldest of the boys and grew into a leader of the gangs that have always run Taetsoo's hometown. Then he left the gang life behind when he married and settled down as a private citizen. He turned the control of his gangs over to another of the childhood chums, Pilho (Beom-su Lee), who's used his illicit power to bring a casino development to town. After Wangjae ends up dead in an alley, Taetsoo and another old friend, the hot-headed Seokhwan (Seung-wan Ryoo), investigate what happened. T he true story leads to Seokhwan's worthless brother Donghwan (Seokt-yong Jeong) and two of those martial arts fight scenes where two guys have to battle dozens of enemies at the same time.The fight scenes are always the most important element of this type of film and The City of Violence delivers. There's very little one-on-one action where it looks more like ballet than combat and there's none of that wire-fu stuff with superhuman leaps and feats of strength, but there's plenty of rough and bloody battle. It's very much in the style of Jackie Chan where there's lot of running and spinning and using whatever's handy for defense and attack. The guys playing Taetsoo and Seokhwan help the puncture the melodrama and keep things from getting too overwrought. As the challenges before them grow, they both evince a "you've got to be kidding me" weariness that gives some emotional realism to the physically fantastic action going on. The fight scenes also look really good, unlike many American action flicks where you literally can't tell what the heck is going on.The story of 4 old friends brought together by death and vengeance is fairly compelling and the acting seems good, though it's always hard to tell. Asian performances can have such different emotional pacing and inflection that it can be a little hard to follow. Beom-su Lee as Pilho, however, pulls off a seamless mixture of weakness and strength as a street kid grown up and out of his depth.Like most Asian martial arts films, there are plenty of things you have to go along with in The City of Violence…such as the kid gangs all having costume themes like something from the old Batman TV show and that this story apparently occurs in a reality where guns where never invented. But if you can accept all that, and you're not just looking for mindless violence, I think you'll like this movie.

I didn't expect much from this....just an action flick to keep me busy for 90 minutes. I did get that, but I got even more.I won't oversell it. The story is about as original as buttered toast. The actors however, played it with as much heart as they could (while trying to look tough). I'm not saying that there are Oscar-worthy performances here, but they didn't sleep walk through it, either. There's a group of high school guys. They were friends, once upon a time. They grew up, and they drifted apart. One of them moved to Seoul and became a police officer. One day he gets a call summoning him home; it seems one of his boyhood friends has been killed. He goes home for the funeral, then with another boyhood chum, decides to investigate...because something just doesn't feel right. Tragedy and betrayal...and of course *violence* ensues.The action scenes were certainly effective, with plenty of stylized Tae Kwon Do all over the place. Only one gun in the movie (in a police station)! There are some people on the site saying the action is under-choreographed and infrequent. I felt like the movie had a good deal of action: Plenty of short action scenes to keep it interesting, and two long b*lls-to-the-wall scenes, the second of which is something like "Kill Bill" meets "Lethal Weapon." A buddy martial arts flick, there just aren't enough of those! Oh, and people talk about the homage to "Kill Bill"....check out the homage to "The Warriors." What can I say....I laughed.The bottom line is, this film is nothing groundbreaking. The drama won't make you cry. The action won't make you cheer out loud. The story won't make you think too much. In spite of this, it is a heck of a lot of fun. In the end, that's what entertainment is supposed to be...."fun." It's mindless action with a bit of soul....and I would recommend it to everyone....just set it aside for a night where you want a fun fix, and you don't want to think too much. And hey, we all have those some time.