I have no intention of repeating the story at length, but some details must be said if you are interested.
The taxi driver Jiunan (played by Jeong-woo Ha Ha) is an ethnic Korean who lives in a small city on the border between China and North Korea in the northeast. He raised money for his wife to help her go to work in South Korea, but she has not heard from her for several years. In order to find his wife, he wrote letters every day, hoping to get a reply from his wife. But it backfired, and the letter was like a rock sinking into the sea. He is a taxi driver, and the loan shark he borrowed has long since expired. The creditors asked him for money every day, and he endured the humiliation while continuing to look for news of his wife while repaying the money. The depression in his heart made him drink wine every night to drown his sorrows, and spend his days in casinos every day. Seeing that the creditors are demanding more and more money, but he is penniless. So under the introduction of the creditor, he went to South Korea as a killer for the gangster Lao Mian to kill people, in order to get a reward and pay off the debt while looking for the whereabouts of his wife. In the unfamiliar South Korea, he took the time to plan the assassination. From the footage of the film, you can really appreciate the fear and difficulty of an ordinary person doing such a high-risk thing, especially in a strange foreign country. But Kunan is strong and smart.
In the end, the professor who was going to kill died. But it was not Jiunan who killed it, but Jiunan was discovered by the police. So a conspiracy gradually surfaced. While avoiding the pursuit of the police, Jiu Nan struggled to find his wife. At the same time, boss Mian was afraid that Jiu Nan would be caught by the police and leaked, and he also sent a gang killer to assassinate Jiu Nan. Jiunan cannot advance or retreat.
A lonely low-level common man was forced to the cliff between black and white. He wants to find his wife, and he wants to live. The killing scenes in the movie are heart-wrenching, blood, violence, loneliness, fear, helplessness, everything surrounds Jiu Nan. He started his final struggle to stay alive. He used his wisdom to find evidence that he did not kill, and gradually understood the conspiracy of the whole thing. He fell into a desperate situation.
The Korean gangster consortium and Boss Mian's gang forces are all chasing and killing Jiunan. Jiunan can't go back to China. What should he do?
The highlight of the film is the performance of the actors. The ferocity of Boss Mian, the strength, helplessness, wisdom and bravery of Mr. Jiunan, the cowardice of the boss of the Korean consortium, etc., are all performances of a series of characters. Every movement of Jiunan shows the desperate struggle and inner fear vividly. In the end, Jiunan did not return to China alive. He died on a fishing boat heading for Dalian, and was lifted by the fisherman and thrown into the sea. Despite his incomparable bravery, despite his wit in taking down the gang boss and escaping the siege of the gangsters, he still died. I think that's what makes the film so successful, there's no superman in real life, we don't need a superman, we don't need a superman who can never die. This is very similar to "Shinjuku Incident", which is why I like it. The ending is sad and sad. There is a metaphor at the end of the movie, that is, Jiu Nan's wife got off the train with her luggage and went home alone. After all, has his wife really returned home? How will he feel when he finds out that Jiu Nan died for her in a foreign country? We don't know, I'd rather his wife didn't come home at all, so that Jiunan's death might not be so wronged.
The focus of the whole film is firstly the action and the bloody scenes that we have never experienced before, and secondly, the understanding of the national psychology of the Korean people in China, which is not recognized by the Koreans and Chinese people. There is a scene in the movie where Jiunan is called by the Chinese after he loses money playing mahjong: Gaoli Bangzi. Hearing this sentence, a kind of sadness rose from the bottom of my heart. Perhaps, the fate of Jiunan, who is a Korean, has long been doomed. But there is no doubt that he fought tenaciously to survive. At the same time, I have a little understanding of the international gangs. Realism always makes people dissect themselves thoroughly.
Know people, experience psychology, feel society and life. This is the quality that we moviegoers should have. We can't just watch those people fight and kill, we can't be sad when they die, and happy when they are happy. If so, have we not changed from Mr. Lu Xun's commentary for over a century?
Believe in fate, but do not succumb to fate.
I am Wang Xiaochen.
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