‘Nameless Gangster: Rules of Time’, The Fantastic! (Movie Review)

Title: Nameless Gangster: Rules of Time (범죄와의 전쟁: 나쁜놈들 전성시대)
Director: Yoon Jong-bin (윤종빈)
Starring: Choi Min-sik (최민식), Ha Jung-woo (하정우)
Released in theaters: February 2nd, 2012, Korea
Rating: 4.5/5
One Line Review: Definitely a contender for best Korean movie of 2012!

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/nameless_gangster

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2082221/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_2_nm_0_q_nameless%2520gangster

01 : Nameless Gangster’s Characters

Choi Ik-hyun, 최익현

He is a customs official who is about to be fired after being caught cheating.

A large amount of drugs he accidentally acquires leads to a connection with gangster Hyung-bae in the Busan area

Ik-hyun helps Hyung-bae expand his power in the Busan area, but the seeds of distrust are growing.

Choi Hyung-bae, 최형배

A loyalist and a thief, Hyung-bae meets Ik-hyun, a distant relative, and expands his business and grows his organization’s power.

The conflict between Hyung-bae and Ik-hyun grows more and more. The declaration of the ‘war on crime’ drives them further apart.

02: Nameless Gangster’s quirks and features

Director Yoon Jong-bin first came to prominence with his graduation film The Unforgiven. That film starred Ha Jung-woo who wasn’t as famous as he is now. But he gave a great performance and showed promise of his current success.

Director Yoon Jong-bin showed off what he could do with his performance as Ji-hoon. The Unforgiven catapulted him into the mainstream with Chungmuro.

Nameless Gangster got really good reviews at the press screening. The whole movie, including Choi Min-sik’s performance as GOAT, was very well received, and I don’t differ from those reviews.

It’s really one of the best movies of 2012. I think it’s going to be the one that will be loved for a long time after it leaves 2012.

Strengths

The movie’s strengths are many: a good ensemble of good actors, a tightly constructed story, a good sense of mixing entertainment with showing us the problems of the times and society, a good sense of pacing between long breaths and short breaths, and a lot more.

I can’t really name any weaknesses, which is probably a good thing.

Nameless Gangster is set in the 1980s. At the center of the story is Choi Ik-hyun, a former customs official who turned half-gangster. His business in Busan in the 80s.

80s and 90s

Nameless Gangster starts with a montage of photos and videos from the Park Chung-hee regime’s arrest of gangsters to the Noh Tae-woo regime’s declaration of war on crime in the 90s.

The film opens with a montage of photographs and footage. The 80s were a time of great democratic regression, dominated by the Chun Doo-hwan regime. The ’80s were dominated by the democratically regressive Chun Doo-hwan regime and the subsequent Noh Tae-woo regime. economic boom.

As I briefly mentioned above, Park Chung-hee’s regime cracked down on thugs, and Chun Doo-hwan’s regime used the Samcheong Education University (There were a lot of problems with people who had nothing to do with crime), so the power of the gangs was greatly diminished.

This is where the beginning of the movie gets interesting. The economy is booming and the gangs are weak.

Nameless Gangster runs a little over two hours and never lets up. In it, we don’t glorify the gangsters at all, but we show them for what they are.

The movie shows that gangsters, who are usually perceived as scary people to be around, are nothing in the face of power and money, but rather a stepping stone to greater heights.

There are references to the 88 Olympics, and the June rebellion that led to the 6-29 Declaration.

Acting

As mentioned above as a strength, the actors are a huge strength of the movie, especially Choi Min-sik, who has the most screen time, and he does an incredible job of getting into character.

Ha Jung-woo is one of the best young actors I’ve seen in a while, and his performance in this movie is no different. his performance was not inferior to Choi Min-sik’s. (Although Ik-hyun’s character is more characterized and intense, so Choi Min-sik gets the characterization and intensity.)

I also really enjoyed the actors in the supporting roles, including Kim Pan-ho (Cho Jin-woong) as the second-in-command. Park Chang Woo (Kim Sung-kyun) as Hyung Bae’s right-hand man, and Ik Hyun’s younger brother-in-law (Don Lee) who is a former martial artist, the prosecutor Cho Bum-seok (Kwak Do-won) who organizes the gangsters.

Their good performances Their good performances are enhanced by a good ensemble cast. The actors in the lead and supporting roles do their jobs well. And they don’t overdo it, which made the movie more harmonious.

I’ve rambled on and on about the movie’s strengths and features, but I’m sure there are many more. I’m sure there are strengths as well. I think it would be great to find them together.

03: Uncomfortable things about the movie

I mentioned that the gangsters in the movie end up kneeling before power and money. And if you think about it, it makes sense. You form a gang to make money, or to enjoy power through the gang. But money crumbles in the face of bigger money, and power crumbles in the face of legitimate power. So when Ik-hyun and Hyung-bae fall out over bigger money, there’s no turning back, and the movie shows the gangsters being pinned down by the police and the police being pinned down by the prosecutors.

While Nameless Gangster depicts the nature of money and power, it also contains uncomfortable truths about our society.

Everything Ik-hyun does and her life is uncomfortable, and although the story takes place 30 years ago, it borrows from that era to criticize the present.

Corruption

First of all, the corruption of the customs officials that Ik-hyun worked for. Korea is ranked 27th out of 34 OECD countries in terms of integrity (as of 2011), which is very low.

You can see articles about corruption all the time, and Jeon Kwan-yew still exists, which is something that hasn’t been fixed even now.

Doesn’t it seem like you’re using the fact that it was 30 years ago to criticize them in a roundabout way?

The way Ikhyun does business also seems uncomfortable. There’s a lot of talk about the importance of connections in Korea, and there’s a lot of different things that make up those connections: academics, lags, and blood ties.

There’s a lot of pushing and pulling based on where you went to school, where you’re from, where your family is from, and that’s always been the case in Korea. Blood ties have become so weak that it’s hard to categorize them as a network.

Mammonism

There is still a phenomenon that wealth and power are inherited by remaining in the so-called ‘background’, which is what parents do and what relatives do.

In this movie, Ik-hyun utilizes her connections, especially her ‘blood ties’. Ik-hyun’s brother-in-law, Mr. Choi, is a member of the Chungryul Gongpa clan, which is why Ik-hyun and Mr. Choi became business partners.

Whenever she’s faced with a difficult situation, she utilizes the people in the Chungryul Gongpa clique to help her through it. She switches from a custodial investigation to a non-custodial investigation or bailing him out of jail.

She also utilizes her connections from her career in the civil service. that I have from my career in government. There’s nothing wrong with using your connections, but not unfairly, to lighten a criminal sentence, or as a lobbying tool.

The funny thing is that this use of connections hasn’t gone away.

Selfishness

Ik-hyun’s later years are also uncomfortable. Ik-hyun has always lived for her own self-interest. She lobbied for profits, she befriended Hyung-bae, she joined hands with Pan-ho when Hyung-bae tried to act against her interests, and then she got her ass kicked by Hyung-bae.

He was not afraid to change his mind if he thought it would hurt him. In 1990, when he was arrested for declaring war on crime After being arrested for declaring war on crime in the 90s, he made a deal with prosecutor Cho Bum-seok. (Cho Bum-seok is also a prosecutor who fights for social justice. prosecutor who fights for social justice, but joins forces with Ik-hyun for personal success.)

Anyway, Ik-hyun continues to slip through the cracks like a loach. and succeeds. The end of the movie is a bitter reality: someone who has lived like Ik-hyun has made a lot of money.

He’s living on the streets, and his son is a prosecutor in a training center, and he has the power of a father-daughter relationship. Through Choi Ik-hyun, the movie shows our country, which gives only more despair to those who have lived right.

Revenge bears revenge

But Nameless Gangster doesn’t end with despair. Just as revenge begets revenge, and revenge begets revenge, Ik-hyun’s life has only been about receiving revenge.

Hearing Hyung-bae’s voice at the end, “Godfather,” must have been a thunderbolt in the happy Ik-hyun’s final days, and I wonder if this ending indirectly shows that someone like Ik-hyun can never be happy.

It would have been steaming to reveal this too directly, but the choice to do it indirectly, leaving it to the audience’s imagination by making it confusing as to whether it was the real Hyung-bae’s voice or a hallucination, like an open ending, was brilliant. It would be interesting to discuss this conclusion after watching the movie.

04: Conclusion

Nameless Gangster has a lot going for it: great performances by the actors, sensible direction by the director, great restoration of the 80s, a tight story, and a good reflection of social reality.

If you go to the theater to de-stress and avoid headaches, this movie will definitely leave you satisfied.

I hope there will be more movies like this in the future.

The ensemble of Choi Min-sik and Ha Jung-woo was great, and while it’ll be a while before we see them reunite again, I’m looking forward to seeing them each come back with something good.

Unless something comes along, I’m guessing this will be the best Korean movie of 2012.

That being said, it was a good movie that entertained me and gave me a lot to think about, and I highly recommend it.