He showed pretty much every emotion in the book without looking fake or too theatrical. At the beginning, he gave us a major Faith throwback with his long hair, but once cut his hair and became a gangster, all of Lee Min Ho’s previous characters went out the window. And while it may be a little hard for K-drama fans to divorce from the chaebol, flower boy image normally associated with him, there was no trace of it in this film (other than his good looks, of course, which, c’mon, he can’t escape that).
#Drama korea gangnam blues movie
Moreover, with Gangnam Blues being Lee Min Ho’s breakout movie role as a lead actor, a lot of expectation was placed upon him. But getting back to the topic of murders, they were shot in a very vivid manner, breaking the noir to show bright reds in either the blood or neon lights in the scenes where Kim and Baek committed crimes together, making the violence more garish, over the top, and significant. The cinematography favored clarity over gimmicks and it worked perfectly. The close up and medium shots throughout the film were used exquisitely to show detail and give insight. Pause any moment in the film and you can get an amazing picture. Actually, the entire cinematography in Gangnam Blues was stunning. While Kim Jong Dae genuinely cared about Kang and Seon Hye (Kim Seolhyun) and looked after “his boys” and Baek protected Kim, they were both cold blooded killers who didn’t second guess committing the most gruesome murders.īut even if murder is a terrible sight, it was - I can’t believe I’m saying this - beautifully shot. The characters are not one dimensional - either innately good or pervasively evil - they have depth and stories and purposes. Yoo Ha emulated the classic Scorsese gangster story by glamorizing the hustler’s lives to a point, but not depicting them as good people. Gangsters die left and right all throughout the film to show just how expendable people were at the hands of those in power or in the pursuit thereof.Īlso on KultScene: 10 Epik High Songs To Get You Ready For Their North American Tour
7) forewarns and foreshadows before war between gangs erupts, gangsters are for using and throwing away, and that’s the most prominent theme in all of Gangnam Blues. Because just as Kim’s boss Kang Gil Soo (Jung Jin Young, Love Rain, Miracle in Cell No. As well as ambition and survival within an urban setting in a developing country.Īnd because it deals with violence, the film is obviously gory and explicit. Similar to director and writer Yoo Ha’s predecessor films Spirit of Jeet Keun Do and A Dirty Carnival, Gangnam Blues deals with the good old themes of violence and conspiracy by the powerful.
Shot in noir, the cinematography and the plot work together to show the violence and the decadence of the city and its characters. The plot follows Kim Jong Dae (Lee Min Ho) and Baek Yong Ki (Kim Rae Won), two guys bound together after growing up in an orphanage, in their journey from rags to gangsters to, ultimately, their demise. And in Lee Min Ho’s first starring role in the film Gangnam Blues (also known as Gangnam 1970) we get to see exactly what the skyscrapers and luxury residential areas were built on: blood and corruption. Before Gangnam was synonymous with opulence for PSY to satirize it, Seoul’s most affluent district was mostly dirt poor farms in the ‘70s.