The story of two outlaws and a bounty hunter in 1940s Manchuria and their rivalry to possess a treasure map while being pursued by the Japanese army and Chinese bandits.
A recently laid off factory worker kidnaps his former boss' friend's daughter, hoping to use the ransom money to pay for his sister's kidney transplant.
After being wrongfully imprisoned for thirteen years and having her child taken away from her, a woman seeks revenge through increasingly brutal means.
Soon after a stranger arrives in a little village, a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman, drawn into the incident, is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.
After a shooting incident at the North/South Korean border/DMZ leaves 2 North Korean soldiers dead, a neutral Swiss/Swedish team investigates, what actually happened.
The Korean title "Dalkomhan Insaeng" and the name of the bar "La Dolce Vita" translate to "The Sweet Life". As an ironic touch the International English title is called "A Bittersweet Life". See more »
Goofs
Just before the bad guys ambush Sun Woo in his flat, he is lying on his couch and the clock beside him reads "9:45" , two shots later, we get a close up of the clock as it switches from 9:39 to 9:40. See more »
Quotes
Mr. Kang:
What has gotten into you? Don't do this, Sun-woo.
Sun-woo:
[shoots Mr. Kang through the heart]
"We can't turn back time can we?"
See more »
Alternate Versions
Two versions of the film exist, the original theatrical version and the director's cut. The director's cut's edits include slight cutting and re-arrangement of scenes, swapping music placement and some additional scenes that do not appear in the original version of the film. See more »
I had the luck to watch this gem at the Fantasy-Film-Festival in Frankfurt yesterday. It was shown in a theater with about 600 seats and against my expectations the room was packed with people.
In comparison with Oldboy or Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance the story is not as deep and goes more straightforward to the pure revenge theme. But this does not make the movie less enjoyable. The cinematography is brilliant and the main-character delivers a great performance. It contains beautifully choreographed martial-arts and gunfight scenes with references to masterpieces like Taxi Driver and Kill Bill.
Despite the fact it is very harsh in some scenes the humor does not come to short. The scene with a discussion of Korean-Russian wannabe-gangsters made me nearly wet my pants.
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I had the luck to watch this gem at the Fantasy-Film-Festival in Frankfurt yesterday. It was shown in a theater with about 600 seats and against my expectations the room was packed with people.
In comparison with Oldboy or Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance the story is not as deep and goes more straightforward to the pure revenge theme. But this does not make the movie less enjoyable. The cinematography is brilliant and the main-character delivers a great performance. It contains beautifully choreographed martial-arts and gunfight scenes with references to masterpieces like Taxi Driver and Kill Bill.
Despite the fact it is very harsh in some scenes the humor does not come to short. The scene with a discussion of Korean-Russian wannabe-gangsters made me nearly wet my pants.