Let the Right One In (2008 - Swedish)

Director: Tomas Alfredson
Writers: John Ajvide Lindqvist (screenplay), John Ajvide Lindqvist (novel)
Låt den rätte komma in (original title)

Don't be mistaken, this is the original film, not the Hollywood remake, released a few years afterwards.

Storyline - Warning, contains spoilers.

Twelve year old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is so wimpy that he's constantly picked on by the other boys at his school, especially Conny (Patrik Rydmark) and his two friends, Martin (Mikael Erhardsson) and Andreas (Johan Sömnes). Out of fear, Oskar never fights back. In the evenings, however, he sits in the courtyard rehearsing knife attacks on his tormentors. One evening, Oskar notices a new girl about his age and her father moving into into #15, the apartment next door to his. Oddly, the first thing they do is to cover the windows with cardboard. What Oskar doesn't know is that Håkan(Per Ragnar) is not Eli (Lina Leandersson)'s father... he is her renfield... and Eli is a vampire. It is Håkan's job to bring Eli fresh blood, which he gets by killing other humans. First he anaesthetises them with halothane, then he strings them up by the feet, slits their necks, and catches the blood in a jug, leaving the bodies to be discovered the next day. Unfortunately for Eli, Håkan is having problems securing blood for her. On his first kill after moving into the new apartment, he either lost or forgot the jug filled with blood. Consequently, Eli is beginning to get hungry.

One evening, as Oskar is in the courtyard stabbing a tree in lieu of his tormentors, he notices Eli watching him. She's not very friendly, as she tells him right off that she can't be friends with him. The next evening, they run into each other again in the courtyard. Oskar notices that Eli is not wearing a coat even though it's the dead of winter in Stockholm. What's more, she's not even cold. And she smells bad. Still, Oskar shares with her his Rubik's cube and shows her how to work it. After Oskar has gone inside, Eli goes hunting. She waits in the shadows under a bridge. When two neighbourhood friends, Jocke (Mikael Rahm) and Lacke (Peter Carlberg), part company, and Jocko walks under the bridge, Eli calls out, "Help me!" Thinking that the little girl has fallen, Jocko picks her up. Suddenly, Eli latches onto him and bites his neck. Gösta (Karl-Robert Lindgren), a friend of the two men, sees everything from his apartment window. By the time he is able to stumble into the Sun Palace Cafe and get help, however, Jocko's body is gone (Håkan has already covered up the killing by tossing the body into a pond), but they do find Jocko's blood in the snow. The next morning, Oskar finds that Eli has solved the Rubik's cube and left it in the courtyard. When they meet there later in the day, Eli is a bit more friendly, taking the time to explain to Oskar how she went about solving the puzzle. She also smells better, but it's odd that she cannot remember her birth date when Oskar asks. Since Eli doesn't know her birth date, she doesn't celebrate her birthdays and gets no presents, so Oskar offers her the Rubik's cube.

The next day at school, Oskar stays after class to copy the symbols for Morse code from the encyclopedia. On his way home, he is confronted by Conny and his two friends. When Conny orders Oskar to show him what he copied from the encyclopedia and Oskar refuses, Martin grabs Oskar and Andreas begins to whip his legs with a stick. As an added measure, Martin slaps the stick against Oskar's cheek, gashing it. Oskar later tells his mother that he fell during recess. But when Eli asks what happened, he tells her the truth. Eli tells him that he must start to fight back. If so, they will stop tormenting him. If they don't stop, Eli promises to help him. Oskar shares with Eli the Morse code that he copied from the encyclopedia. That night, they practise tapping on the wall that separates their apartments. The next day at school, Oskar signs up for the weight-lifting program. Later, he takes Eli to a candy store and offers her a piece. At first, she refuses; then she tries one. Oskar finds her heaving on the sidewalk around the corner. He hugs her. Eli asks him whether or not he would still like her if she wasn't a girl. "I guess so," Oskar replies, not quite understanding what Eli is asking.

As the friendship between Oskar and Eli deepens, Håkan starts feeling a bit jealous. He tries again to obtain blood for Eli. This time he preys on a student alone in the weight-lifting room, but he is interrupted when Matte (Christoffer Bohlin)'s friends come to pick him up. Knowing that he is trapped and about to be discovered, Håkan pours acid on his face so that he can't be identified. When Eli learns that Håkan has been taken to a hospital, she shows up asking for her father. The desk clerk tells her that Håkan is on Level 7, so she climbs up the outside of the building until she gets to his window. Håkan lets her in and offers her his neck. After Eli drinks his blood, Håkan falls to his death. Eli returns to the apartment building and taps on Oskar's bedroom window, asking to be let in. Oskar is almost asleep but he tells her to come in. Eli crawls into bed with him, and Oskar notices that she doesn't have any clothes on. He asks her whether she'd like to go steady with him, and Eli replies "I'm not a girl." That doesn't seem to bother Oskar, so they decide to go steady. The next morning, Eli returns to her own apartment, but she leaves a note for Oskar that reads, "To flee is life; To linger is death. Your Eli."

One afternoon on a school outing to a local pond for some ice skating, Conny, Martin, and Andreas again confront Oskar with a warning that they are going to push him into an ice hole. This time, however, Oskar stands up for himself and takes a swipe at Conny's head with a stick, causing his ear to bleed. At the same time, two younger students gone off to pee behind some trees notice a body frozen in the ice. The police are called, and the body is cut free. Later that afternoon, after school is out, Oskar brings Eli to a basement room at the school. When Eli asks why they're there, Oskar pulls out a knife and cuts his palm, offering to mix bloods with her. Watching Oskar's blood drip on the floor, Eli can no longer stand the hunger that she's experiencing now that Hakan is not providing her with blood. She falls to the floor and begins to lap up Oskar's blood.

The body stuck in the ice is identified as that of Jocko's. Jocko's drinking buddy, Lacke (Peter Carlberg) and his girlfriend Virginia (Ika Nord), try to convince Gösta to tell the police what he saw the night that Jocko was murdered. During the discussion, however, Lacke defends his closeness with Jocko by pointing out that Virginia is "cold", Consequently, Virginia storms off. Lacke follows her to the subway where Eli jumps on her. Fortunately, Lacke is able to kick Eli off before she kills Virginia. Unfortunately for Virginia, Lacke's save only means that Virginia is doomed to become a vampire. She notices the change the next morning when she opens the blinds and quickly closes them again. That evening, she visits Gösta's apartment looking for Lacke, but she is viciously attacked by Gösta's cats. Later, in the hospital, Virginia realises that she's been infected with something and decides that she doesn't want to live. She asks the doctor to open the blinds to her room. Immediately, she is consumed in flames.

A wimp he might be but Oskar is not a dummy. He has figured out that Eli is a vampire and confronts her. Knocking on the door to her apartment, he is let in to see that there is no furniture and that Eli smells bad again. When Eli comes to his apartment and asks to be invited in, he stalls, asking her what would happen if he didn't invite her in. Eli steps inside and begins to bleed from various places on her body. Oskar relents and invites her in. Eli explains that she drinks blood because she has to. Apparently, Oskar understands, as he allows Eli to shower and put on one of his mother's dresses. As Eli dresses, Oskar peeks in the door and notices that Eli has a horizontal scar across her public area and no evidence of a vaginal slit. [NOTE: In the novel, Eli was born male and castrated at age 12 by the vampire that turned him.] When Oskar's mom comes home, Eli immediately scampers across the window from Oskar's apartment to hers, even though it's two stories up.

The next morning, Oskar finds a note from Eli asking him whether he wants to meet her that evening. Lacke has somehow traced Eli to her apartment. He breaks in and finds her asleep in the bathtub. Because he can't see in the dark, he rips open the cardboard covering the windows. Oskar, who was in the apartment waiting for Eli to wake up, screams "NO!" giving Eli sufficient time to jump on Lacke and drink his blood. After feeding, Eli thanks Oskar, but informs him that she must go away. That night, Oskar looks out the window to see Eli moving.

The next day, Oskar gets a call from Martin, asking whether or not he's going to be at swimming practice that afternoon. Martin also tells Oskar that he thinks Oskar was right to stand up to Conny. That afternoon, while Oskar is in the pool, someone starts a fire in the trashbin out back, forcing the attendant to leave the pool area unattended. As Martin distracts Oskar, Conny, Andreas, and Conny's big brother Jimmy (Rasmus Luthander) enter the pool area. Jimmy orders everyone else out of the pool. When they are alone with Oskar, Jimmy gives Oskar an ultimatum... either stay under water for three minutes or have one of his eyes poked out... Oskar's eye for Conny's ear. Then Jimmy grabs Oskar's hair and pushes him under. A minute passes. Suddenly, feet can be seen skimming on the surface of the water, followed by Jimmy's severed head, and then Jimmy's severed arm. An almost drowned Oskar is pulled from the water by Eli, who has just slaughtered three of Oskar's tormentors, leaving the fourth sobbing on the side of the pool.


(Reference - www.imdb.com)

The Orphanage (2007 - Spanish)

Director: J.A. Bayona
Writer: Sergio G. Sánchez
Executive producer: Guillermo Del Toro
El Orfanato (original title)

Storyline - Warning, contains spoilers.

The film is set in Spain, where Laura (Belén Rueda) returns to the dilapidated orphanage where she grew up, accompanied by her husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo), and their seven-year-old son, Simón (Roger Princep). Her plan is to reopen the orphanage as a facility for disabled children. Once there, Simón claims that he sees a friend named Tomás, whom he draws as a child wearing a sack mask. Later, Benigna, the social worker (Montserrat Carulla), visits the orphanage and tells Laura that she has Simón's adoption file. Laura becomes angry at Benigna's intrusion and sends her away. That night, Laura finds Benigna snooping around her garden shed, but Benigna escapes before Laura can confront her. Later, Simon teaches Laura a type of scavenger hunt game that Tomás taught him. The game involves hiding a person's possessions, with the player who recovers his final possession winning a wish. While playing the game, Laura discovers Simón's adoption file is missing and angrily accuses Simón of hiding it. An angry Simón denies this and says that Tomás told him that Laura is not his real mother and that he is going to die.

Later, at a children's party at the Orphanage, Laura and Simón argue, and Simón hides from Laura. Laura looks in the bathroom, only to be confronted with a boy in a sack mask with the name "Tomás" embroidered onto his shirt. When Laura approaches Tomás, he traps her in the bathroom. Laura escapes and frantically searches for Simón. She sees a vague figure of a boy standing in a cave in the distance; in her haste to go to the figure, Laura trips and injures herself. At a medical centre, the police psychologist, Pilar (Mabel Rivera), suggests to Laura and Carlos that Benigna may have abducted Simón. That night at home, a bedridden Laura hears unexplained banging in the walls.

Months later, Laura and Carlos spot Benigna pushing a baby carriage downtown. As Laura calls out to her, Benigna is suddenly hit and killed by a speeding ambulance. Laura rushes to Benigna's carriage, but finds only a doll wearing Tomás' sack mask. With this clue, Police search Benigna's home and find evidence revealing that Benigna worked at the orphanage long ago. Pilar shows Laura an old photo of a young Benigna (Carol Suárez) and her deformed son named Tomás. Laura learns that the children of the orphanage played a trick on Tomás, which led to his accidental death.

In desperation, Laura goes to a medium named Aurora (Geraldine Chaplin), seeking clues to her son's disappearance. The medium tells Laura that she is close to death, and so has the ability to see the dead. Unable to cope with the situation, Carlos leaves the orphanage, and Laura takes sedatives to get into a state of near-death. She begins to see ghost children around her who lead her to a hidden door which leads to a basement room. Here, she finds Simón alive and hugs him in a blanket. As the ghost children vanish, Laura finds that the blanket is empty and the body of the deceased Simón lies behind her. Realising that Simón had been trapped in the basement all along, Laura carries Simón's body upstairs and swallows all her medication, begging to be with Simón again. Laura's wish is granted as the ghosts of the dead children appear and Simón comes to life in Laura's arms.

Alone outside the orphanage, Carlos walks over the gravestones for Laura and Simón who both were found dead while he was gone. Carlos returns to their old bedroom and finds a medallion that he gave to Laura on the floor. Carlos hears the sound of the bedroom door opening; as he turns to it he slowly smiles.

(Reference - www.imdb.com)

Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2009)

Director: Jonas Åkerlund
Writer: Dave Callaham

Storyline - Warning, contains spoilers.

The movie opens with an older man and his dog out on a winter morning hunt, when a strange sight catches his eye. A serving tray on a stand in the middle of a frozen lake. He steps up to investigate, but notices the phrases "Come and See" on several trees surrounding the tray. When he lifts the lid, his eyes widen, but his fate is not shown.

Detective Aidan Breslin (Dennis Quaid) is an emotionally detached widower whose life with his two sons have been devoid of personal contact since the death of his beloved wife. He receives a call of a possible murder. He arrives at the lake and is instead asked to identify a man's teeth, due to his former dental forensics expertise it is as yet undetermined if the man is in fact dead. Using the evidence on the teeth, he is able to determine the sex, race, diet and approximate age of the victim which matches that of a man who had earlier been reported as missing, but they have no evidence to what happened to him, and the only clue were that trees surrounding him reading "Come and See" on the north, south, east and west banks. The bizarre murder of a beloved wife and mother of three (including an adopted Asian daughter Kristin) displays prominent features of a ritualistic killing. She had been strung up on a series of hooks, the bedroom painted red and according to an autopsy report, she had been drowned by her own blood due to a precise stabbing through the lung and heart walls, as well as a bizarre twist that she had been pregnant and the fetus was removed. On the walls of the rooms "Come and See" is displayed prominently on all four walls. Using physical evidence, Breslin is able to determine that there were four attackers, and they used a tripod for a camera to record the murder. Breslin attempts to console the grieving daughters, but is interrupted by the arrival of their father.

Meanwhile, Breslin's home life finds that though he attempts, his work continually interrupts his chances of attaching emotionally with his sons Alex and Sean. Another murder occurs, with the same M.O. through a man who is hanging in a living room surrounded by black colors. This leads Breslin to a tattoo parlor and finds the builder of the hook rigs who confirms he had constructed four in total. Another murder occurs, but this time in a hotel room with no hook rigging and only three notices of "Come and See" on the walls. Sean's insights point Breslin to the Bible and he discovers that these killings are much like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the colours of the room corresponding to the colours of the horsemen. "Come and See" goading them toward the lifting of the veil and the coming of the Apocalypse. Kristin contacts him unexpectedly and he goes to meet with her, and console her in her mourning. However during the conversation, she shocks Breslin by presenting her sibling's fetus and revealing she was involved in the murders. After her arrest, her interrogations make her appear unhinged, almost wanting for death. Breslin assumes that she is the one representing the Horseman of Death, as she approached each of the victims and delivered the killing blow to them.

Alex, growing more and more distant from his father after Breslin insisted not to continue to celebrate their late mother's birthday every year slowly starts to open himself up to his father. Breslin returns the feelings to his children and attempts to make plans with them, however further reports pull him away. A failed attempt to catch the Horsemen at their home base grants further clues. A website, which Breslin noticed the homepage of before the computer was destroyed, and a partial hard drive recovery which leads them to that website in which a future date is displayed. One boy, Cory, who had come out as gay to his family confronts his homophobic brother Taylor, and turns out to be one of the Horsemen. After stabbing a man, but leaving him alive to provide his description to police and takes Taylor. Taylor awakens to find that he is hooked up into a rack with his eyes fixed open in the middle of a green lit room, as his brother comes out of the darkness and while wielding a bone saw he proceeds to cut himself in the chest and kill himself before Taylor's eyes while trying to cut his own heart out. The following morning, a traumatised Taylor is questioned by Breslin, who goes over to Kristin's house and he and his partner Stingray discover the video recordings of her mother's murder, he then learns that she had been sexually abused by her father, and has him arrested. Breslin's boss tries to get him onto another case, but he becomes convinced that there is still another pending victim as four rigs had been constructed and only 3 had been used in the 4 recent murders. He approaches Kristin that the third victim was the Horseman Pestilence. The third Horseman identified, she refuses to relinquish who their leader is. He comes to the conclusion that due to the nature of the first murder, he was meant to be assigned to the case all along, and becomes concerned that his family will be targeted next.

Stingray is attacked when investigating the Breslin home at his request, and when Aidan arrives he searches the house, entering his son's room for the first time since his wife's passing, only to discover to his horror that everything in the room, floor, ceiling, computer, bed spread are white in colour; the colour of the Horsemen leader. The clues point him to a theatre called the Metropolitan, which had earlier been confirmed to be where Aidan first met his wife. When he arrives, he is knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant, when he comes round he finds himself handcuffed to the stadium seating as he finds his son dangling over the stage on the final of the four rigs. Watching, terrified as Alex starts bleeding to death, gives him a speech regarding to his own emotional detachment after being the only one present when his mother died. As Alex succumbs to his injuries, Breslin rips his handcuffs off the seating and fires his gun to detach the rigging from the ceiling. Alex awakens weakly as his father holds him, but it is undetermined if he survives. In the final scene, Sean wakes up from a bad dream as his father comforts him quietly. When he asks where Alex is, Breslin replies: "Don't you worry about Alex. Alex is going to be okay." In the director's commentary, however, Jonas Akerlund stated," There is no happy ending, however you twist and turn it. There is no happy ending so, to me, Alex had to die in this movie."

(Reference - www.imdb.com)

Pan's Labyrinth (2006 - Spanish)

Director: Guillermo del Toro
Writer: Guillermo del Toro
El Laberinto del Fauno (original title)

Storyline - Warning, contains spoilers.

In a fairy tale, Princess Moanna, whose father is the king of the underworld, becomes curious about the world above, the human world. When she goes to the surface, the sunlight blinds her and erases her memory. She becomes very ill and eventually dies. However, the king believes that her spirit will come back to the underworld someday.

In post–Civil War Spain in 1944 (after Francisco Franco has come into power) Ofelia, a young girl who loves fairy tales, travels with her pregnant mother Carmen to meet Captain Vidal, her new stepfather and father of Carmen's unborn child. Vidal, the son of a famed commander who died in Morocco, believes strongly in falangism and was assigned to root out any anti-Franco rebels.

Ofelia discovers a large insect resembling a stick insect which she believes to be a fairy. It follows her to the mill where Vidal is stationed and leads Ofelia into an ancient labyrinth nearby. Before Ofelia can enter, she is stopped by Mercedes, one of Vidal's maids who is spying for the rebels. That night, the insect appears in Ofelia's bedroom, where it changes into a fairy and leads her through the labyrinth. There, she meets the faun, who believes her to be Princess Moanna and gives her three tasks to complete before the full moon to ensure that her "essence is intact". Meanwhile, Vidal's cruel and sociopathic nature is revealed when he brutally murders two individuals who had been detained on suspicion of being rebel allies and who may merely have been farmers.

Ofelia completes the first task of retrieving a key from the belly of a giant toad, but she becomes worried about her mother, whose condition is worsening. The faun gives Ofelia a mandrake root, which cures Carmen's illness and soothes her pain.

Accompanied by three fairy guides, Ofelia then completes the second task of retrieving an ornate dagger from the lair of the Pale Man, a child-eating monster who sits silently in front of a large feast. Although she was gravely warned not to consume anything, she eats two grapes, awakening the Pale Man. He eats two of the fairies and chases Ofelia, but she manages to escape. Infuriated at her disobedience, the faun refuses to give Ofelia the third task.

Meanwhile, Vidal becomes increasingly vicious, torturing a captured rebel prisoner, and then killing the doctor — also a rebel sympathiser — who euthanised the prisoner to put him out of his misery. Shortly afterwards, Vidal catches Ofelia tending to the mandrake root. Carmen throws it into the fireplace, where it then begins to writhe and scream in agony. Carmen immediately develops painful contractions and dies giving birth to a son. Vidal discovers that Mercedes is a spy, and he captures her and Ofelia as they attempt to escape. Ofelia is locked in her bedroom, and Mercedes is taken to be tortured; however, she frees herself, badly injures Vidal, and flees into the woods, where the rebels rescue her.

The faun returns to Ofelia and gives her one more chance to prove herself. He tells her to take her baby brother into the labyrinth. Ofelia steals the baby after sedating Vidal; although disoriented, Vidal continues to chase her through the labyrinth while the rebels successfully attack the mill. The faun tells Ofelia that the portal to the underworld will open only with an innocent's blood, so he needs a drop of her brother's blood. Ofelia refuses to harm her brother, and eventually Vidal finds her, seemingly talking to herself as the faun is not visible through his eyes. The faun leaves Ofelia to her choice, and Vidal takes the baby away from her, shooting her immediately after.

When Vidal leaves the labyrinth, the rebels and Mercedes are waiting for him. Knowing that he will die, he calmly hands Mercedes the baby. Vidal takes out his watch and demands that Mercedes tell his son the exact time of his father's death. Mercedes interrupts, telling him, to his horror, that his son will never even know his name. Pedro, one of the rebels and Mercedes' brother, draws his pistol and shoots Vidal in the face, killing him.

As Mercedes enters the labyrinth and comforts the dying girl, drops of Ofelia's blood spill onto the altar. Ofelia suddenly finds herself in a golden throne room. Her real father, the king of the underworld, explains that the last test was a trick to ensure that Ofelia would never spill the blood of an innocent. The queen of the underworld invites Ofelia to sit by her father and rule at his side. The scene then cuts back to the labyrinth, where Ofelia smiles as she passes away above the altar.

(Reference - en.wikipedia.org)

A Better Tomorrow (2010 - South Korean)

Storyline - Warning, contains spoilers.

Kim Hyuk (Joo Jin-mo) is a detective in the South Korean National Police Agency, having escaped from North Korea as a teenager. Unbeknownst to his superiors, he also works as an illegal arms smuggler with his best friend and partner in crime, Lee Young-choon (Song Seung-hun), who also defected from the North.

Hyuk has a younger brother, Chul (Kim Kang-woo), whom he was forced to leave behind (along with their mother) during his escape. Guilt-ridden over leaving his brother behind, Hyuk has spent the past few years searching for his brother. Eventually, he finds Chul in an internment camp but Chul resents Hyuk for leaving behind the family to escape. It is then revealed that their mother was killed sometime after Hyuk's escape.

Hyuk goes to Thailand to complete an arms deal, accompanied by Jung Tae-min (Jo Han-sun), a new member of the smuggling operation. However they were double-crossed by Jung and the Thai gang. Jung escapes, while Hyuk is captured and sentenced to prison for three years. After reading about Hyuk's capture in the newspaper, Lee finds the Thai gangster in a massage parlor and kills him and his henchmen. However, in the ensuing gunfight, he is shot in the knee and crippled.

After Hyuk is released from custody. Remorseful and determined to start a new life, he finds work as a taxi driver. Meanwhile, Chul has become an officer in the National Police and Jung has become the leader of the arms smuggling operation, while Lee does odd jobs to survive. During an emotional reunion, Lee asks Hyuk to return to the underworld to take revenge on Jung, but Hyuk refuses.

Hyuk seeks Chul out, hoping for a reconciliation, but Chul rebuffs him, seeing Hyuk as nothing but a criminal and still resentful that Hyuk left the family in North Korea. Jung finds Hyuk and presses him to rejoin the organization, offering to bring Young-choon along if Hyuk rejoins, but Hyuk refuses. Meanwhile, Chul is obsessed with arresting Jung and bringing down the arms operation. After Jung has Young-choon beaten and threatens to harm Chul, Hyuk decides to join Young-choon in taking revenge on Jung. Hyuk and Young-choon steal incriminating evidence from the smuggling business and use it to ransom Jung in exchange for money and an escape boat. However, Hyuk has given the evidence to the police. Using Jung as a hostage, Hyuk and Young-choon take the money to a pier, intending to escape in the boat. Meanwhile, having followed his brother, Chul arrives on the scene but is captured by Jung's men. Even though he is free to escape, Hyuk decides to return to save Chul and asks Young-choon to leave on his own.

Hyuk returns and offers to exchange Jung for Chul, but the trade explodes into a wild shootout. Hyuk and Chul are wounded and pinned down, but saved by Young-choon, who turned the boat around out of loyalty to Hyuk. After killing many of Jung's men, Young-choon berates Chul, telling him that he should be grateful to have a brother like Hyuk. Young-choon is in turn gunned down by Jung's men. The police arrive and begin arresting Jung's men. Jung evades capture and escapes into a steelyard. Hyuk and Chul chase after him, but Hyuk is shot and killed when he shields Chul from Jung's gunfire. Jung mocks Chul and prepares to surrender to the surrounding police. Despite warnings from the police to drop his weapon, Chul shoots and kills Jung. As the police advance, Chul cradles his brother's body in his arms and tearfully laments that he missed him. He aims his gun to his head and the scene cuts to black as a single gunshot is heard.

(Reference - en.wikipedia.org)

The Man from Nowhere (2010 - South Korean)

Storyline - Warning, contains spoilers. 

Operating a pawn shop in a small neighbourhood, Cha Tae-sik now leads a quiet life. His only connection to the rest of the world is a little girl, So-mee, who lives nearby. A heroin addict and So-mis mother, Hyo-jeong, smuggles drugs from a drug trafficking organization and entrusts Tae-sik with the product without his knowledge. When the traffickers find out about this they kidnap both Hyo-jeong and So-mi. The gang sends a number of thugs to Tae-sik's pawn shop to retrieve the stolen drugs, but is easily overpowered by Tae-sik, making his identity ambiguous. However, upon learning that the gang now has in their possession both Hyo-jeong and So-mi, Tae-sik gives the beaten gang members what they are looking for.

Realizing that Tae-sik may serve better as a mule than their former thug, the brothers that lead the gang Man-sik and Jong-sik promise to release Hyo-jeong and So-mi under the condition that Tae-sik make a delivery for them. Tae-sik makes the decision to face the outside world in order to rescue So-mi. However, the delivery was part of a larger plot to eliminate a drug ring superior, Mr. Oh, and Tae-sik is arrested. At the same time, Hyo-jeongs body, with her organs harvested, is discovered in the back of the car used by Tae-sik when he made the delivery, and Tae-sik realizes that So-mis life may also be in danger. He fights off half a dozen detectives and escapes from the police station. During his escape, the police are bewildered at Tae-sik's display of power, combat techniques and agility, and further investigates his bio and finds out that he was once a black operation agent for the Korean government with numerous commendations, but dropped out from the agency after witnessing his pregnant wife being murdered in front of his eyes in connection with him by being hit by a truck while inside their car. The incident nearly drove him mad, hence he went into hiding.

Realizing this, the Narcotics head contacted a weakened Tae-sik after his encounter with a highly trained assassin who backs up the brothers. Now with the knowledge that So-mee is being used by an ANT organization to secretly smuggle drugs and - in the future might be killed for organ harvesting, Tae-sik goes on a mad killing.hunting spree to locate and save So-mee, who is his only connection to a caring world.

A gore battle ensues, from the ANT/Drug manufacturing location where he was able to free the remaining children and kill off the younger of the brothers, to their posh condo unit where the rest of the killing continues. Tae-sik went mad when a container that holds harvested eyes was rolled towards him, believing to be So-mees. A final stand-off with the assassin ensues, with Tae-sik winning the fight.

After killing off the last hoodlum in the parking lot, Tae-sik was about to resign to his fate by shooting himself when a scared and dirty So-mee emerged from the darkness. She was saved by the assassin who took to her kindly and killed instead the surgeon accomplice - his eyes were in the container that Tae-sik saw.

A police escort in the end sees Tae-sik and So-mee together in the back of the detectives car. While she sleeps. Tae-sik asks if they can be dropped off at the small convenience store - a surprise for So-mee. The owner got a shock upon seeing all the police lined up around them, and with the words: You really messed it up big time.

Tae-sik pulls up a fancy backpack with a star, and fills it up with fancy school stuff, much to her delight.

(Reference - www.imdb.com)

A Bittersweet Life (2005 - South Korean)

What better way to kick off this blog than with one of my favourite action crime dramas of all time, A Bittersweet Life. Flawless and perfectly executed in every way possible, this film will not disappoint. Directed by the talented Kim Jee-Woon, also known for his brilliant work on titles such as A Tale of Two Sisters, I Saw the Devil and The Good, the Bad, the Weird.

My only disappointment is that the film isn't available on Blu-Ray. 

Storyline - Warning, contains spoilers. 

Kim Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun) is an enforcer and manager for a hotel owned by a cold, calculating crime boss, Kang (Kim Yeong-cheol), to whom he is unquestionably loyal. The two share concerns over business tensions with Baek Jr., a son from a rival family, which is when Kang assigns Sun-Woo what is perceived (at first) to be a simple errand while he is away on a business trip to shadow his young mistress, Heesoo (Shin Min-a), for fear that she may be cheating on him with another, much younger man, with the mandate that he must kill them both if he discovers their affair. As he performs his duty following Heesoo, and escorting her to a music recital one day he becomes quietly enthralled by the girl's beauty and innocence, as glimpses into his lonely, empty personal life become more prevalent.

When he does come to discover Heesoo's secret lover directly in her home, he fiercely beats him, but seeing the girl's traumatized state causes him to take pause, pulled by his attraction to her. He thus spares the two on the condition that they no longer see each other again, causing her to harbour enmity towards him, despite the fact he had saved their lives at his own expense.

Meanwhile, Sun-woo continues to be embroiled in personal business with Baek Jr., over having beaten up several of his henchmen earlier for overstaying their welcome at the hotel. He is then threatened by one of his enforcers to apologize, but he adamantly refuses, fueled by his frustrations over Heesoo. As he relaxes in his apartment later one night, he is suddenly kidnapped by Baek's men to be tortured, but before they can do so, they receive new orders via phone call, and he is abruptly carried off to Kang, who has returned from overseas and has found out about his attempted cover-up of Heesoo's affair. Kang's men torture him into confessing why he lied, until he is left alone to think about his answer. A daring but messy escape follows, after which Sun-woo plans his revenge.

Help from one of Sun-woo's loyal co-workers provides him with money and new clothes to go about his plan: he secretly delivers Heesoo a gift to make amends, and he sets up a meeting with some local arms dealers, but as they work for Kang's organization, he ends up killing them over a deal to buy a handgun this incurs a vendetta with the brother of one of the dealers, who promptly sets out to find Sun-woo. He then goes on to set up a fake rendezvous with Baek Jr., exchanging words and killing him as well, though he is viciously stabbed in the process. Bleeding, his violent shooting spree leads directly to Kang amidst one of his business meetings, where he vents at him his anger over how badly he has been treated, despite his many years of service. Kang remains coldly indifferent to his plight, seeing his position as absolute in the matter. Sun-woo then shoots him, prompting a shootout with Baek Jr.'s henchmen, who had quickly picked up his trail.

Sun-Woo emerges as the only survivor of the battle, with the arms dealer's brother finally catching up to him in the same room. Now dying from multiple gunshot wounds, he pauses to reminisce on his only day with Heesoo, when he had escorted her to her music recital; in his memory, as he watches her play her cello, he finds himself overwhelmed with emotion and, in a rare moment of contentment for Sun-woo, he smiles. As he sheds a tear over this memory, the brother puts a bullet in his head.

The next scene shows Sun-Woo looking out of a window at the city below him and then beginning to shadowbox his reflection in the glass. The ending is left ambiguous, as the viewer is unsure if everything that happened was a dream or if it is only a flashback.

(Reference - www.imdb.com)