SECRET REUNION (2010)

A South Korean government agent, Lee Han-kyu (the awesome Kang-ho Song), is heading up a task force to capture the notorious North Korean assassin Shadow. Shadow is in town to execute some traitors who escaped from the North and then dared to openly talk shit about Kim Jong-il. Shadow has a brand new trainee with him, Song Ji-won. Song went to spy school, but when he sees firsthand the brutality of executing an entire family he has second thoughts. Right as Shadow is killing the family, Lee's men show up and Song escapes (because of this he's labeled a traitor by the North). Shadow, being a complete badass, shoots the shit out of everybody and escapes himself. The whole event is a disaster and Agent Lee is blamed for everything. He's disgraced and then fired.

Six years later Lee is now using his detective skills to catch runaway wives. One night while working on a case, he runs into Song. Both recognize the other, but act like they don't. Lee, thinking Song is still an undercover spy, wants to use him to crack a spy ring and become a hero. Song, thinking Lee is still an undercover agent, wants to use him to get information to sell so he can pay for his family to defect from the North. So with both of them wanting something from the other they team up to catch fugitive wives.

That kinda sounds like the set-up for a bizarre buddy comedy, but this movie is pretty serious and the action scenes are good, especially the ones featuring Shadow. That dude was awesome! He might be old (the same actor played the police chief in I SAW THE DEVIL), but when he wanted you dead there was nothing stopping him. His performance nearly stole the movie and with an lesser actor in the lead he might have, but Kang-ho Song isn't going to let that happen. He's great and he's really starting to become one of my favorite actors.

Plenty of action, a few laughs, fights, shoot outs, car wrecks, strong character development, exciting camerawork and a satisfying ending. The only thing this movie was missing was a beautiful woman, but oh well we can't have everything. Well worth renting.

LADY VENGEANCE (2005)

As far as the Vengeance Trilogy goes...OLDBOY is the best, followed by SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGEANCE and this one third.  The story was too slow and the vengeance was weak as fuck. Visually though the film was great to look at!

The story jumps around back and forth and all over the joint, so I'll just give you the simple version and say a woman served 13 years in prison for the murder of a child she didn't kill. Now she's out and she wants revenge. She gets it, but it slooooowly. At least in SFMV you had a bunch of stabbing and that great baseball bat the the skull scene, in OLDBOY you had the tooth-pulling and the legendary hammer scene, but in SFLV there's really nothing that stands out. It's a good movie, but I found it overly boring and nowhere near as exciting as I had expected from Chan-wook Park.

Good film and definitely worth watch, but I found it to be a minor drag. Honestly the highlight of the entire movie was seeing the brief cameo by Kang-ho Song and that other dude, the guy who farted on his mother in THIRST. Check out Park's other stuff first.

Part 1 - Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)
Part 2 - Oldboy (2003)

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (2008)

Set back in 1930's China the story is about a treasure map. The Weird dude steals it during a train robbery. So now the Bad guy and his gang are chasing him, but there's also a Good guy who's a bounty hunter and he's chasing both. But that's not all because you also have the Japanese Army and a bunch of other secondary gangs showing up and blasting the shit out of everything.

Tons shooting, massive body count, catchy music, excellent cinematography, outstanding direction by Kim Jee-woon and the three leads are all really good.  My only complaint is it's probably 20 minutes too long.

SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGENANCE (2002)

Ehh, kinda boring. There's a few exciting moments, but I could easily trim off 20 minutes of filler. So you got this deaf mute dude who has a sick sister. She's on the waiting list for a kidney, but she's sick as fuck, so being a little simple, he goes to an organ dealer. They take his money he's saved up for his sister's surgery, steal his kidney and leave him naked in an abandoned building. That's pretty shitty, but the real bad luck happens next when he gets a frantic message from the hospital saying they have a donor kidney and all they need is the money for the surgery within few days. He flips out and with his Communist girlfriend they kidnap a wealthy dude's daughter. At first, things are going according to plan, but soon everything goes to shit and here's where the vengeance comes in.

Overall it's kinda entertaining, but I felt zero connection to any of the main characters so I really didn't give a f what happened to any of them.  Also why would they even sew him up?  Why not just harvest all of his organs? The most interesting thing for me was the look of the movie. Chan-wook Park is definitely talented and lucky for us he seems to get better with each film he makes.

Not a bad movie by any means. I just think it should have been shorter with better character development. Good performances by everybody. Worth watching once.

Part 2 - Oldboy (2003)
Part 3 - Lady Vengeance (2005)