Nameless Gangster

Yoon Jong-bin's film is set in Busan between the late eighties and the early nineties. Choi Min-sik plays Choi Ik-hyun, a corrupt customs officer with nothing left to lose, who uses a distant family tie to form a partnership with the gang boss Choi Hyung-bae, played by Ha Jung-woo. The film's best idea is that Choi Ik-hyun never actually becomes a gangster. He cannot fight, he is a coward, he weeps constantly, and his only talent is using kinship to get himself a seat at the table. Hierarchy and regional networks in Korean society turn out to be more powerful tools here than any weapon. Behind all this is the war on crime the government declared in 1990, and the film shows whom that campaign swept away and whom it protected. It drew roughly four million six hundred thousand admissions, a striking figure for a film restricted to viewers over nineteen. Choi Min-sik collected numerous awards. Who it is for: viewers who enjoy Korean crime cinema and rise-and-fall narratives in the Scorsese mould. Who it is not for: anyone put off by violence, or unwilling to track a crowded cast of names across two hours.