Kim Byung-doo is the eldest son of his family, with two more brothers and a sick mother, their responsibility to provide for their livelihoods and health pressure more and more. For some time involved in the local mafia, our protagonist even reached a certain success, being the head of a subgroup. But that's not financially enough, Kim lives a life as good as or worse than people his age, and the prospect of growing up in the mafia shrinks to the point that his "supervisor" is a chupim and fears to put him in a more relevant role.While this is taking place, his classmates make a reunion. There he reviews his high school passion and also an old friend, now a young filmmaker. This school reunion will draw two more points from the story, the relationship with Hyun-ju and the resumption of friendship with Min-ho.Throughout history, the Mafia president suffers with a small problem and scale Kim to solve it. The solution involves the murder of a prestigious prosecutor. The young gangster takes care of the service and immediately suffers an existential crisis. He begins to weigh his poor family, his old love that does not sympathize with being a thug and the very fact of killing an innocent person. Distraught, Kim goes to Hyun-ju's house, which readily offers a friendly shoulder.Hyun-ju managed to produce some things, but nothing relevant. He has been working on a screenplay for a long time, demonstrating the life of gangsters. Its versions are discarded in sequence, lack truth in the text, according to the producer. The friend's shoulder resolves to appropriate Kim's confidences and rewrite his final script in a new outfit.The death of the promoter and the final script brings problems for all involved directly and splashes in the others. Despite the existence of many films about the genre, Biyeolhan geori surprises by treating the subject in another way, with originality and script that interconnects all the subplots with harmony. As typical of Korean cinema, the photograph is beautiful and well marks the efficient direction of the film. Unlike his countrymen, the film does not gush blood or feelings, his biggest bet is on human relations and the limit to conquer what is desired.

I'm surprised this one only has fourteen reviews; for a film as entertaining as this one was I would've expected a lot more people to have seen it. I only review films that have a small amount of reviews on IMDb, because after the 20th review, pretty much everything has been said about the film that needs saying. I just want to comment about the fight scenes. On the DVD, they showed how they staged each one, and one of the reasons they look so realistic is they weren't choreographed in the standard way. Rather than that unrealistic Tarentino style of carefully worked out 'dance moves', these were gritty, intense street fighting-based scenes where it seemed like the actors were getting hurt on each one, because they put so much into them. Even the lead actor had to be out on medical care for fifteen days, because he got seriously injured in one fight scene. Could you imagine that happening to one of those prissy Hollywood actors? They achieved a much more realistic effect, because they used no stunt men, CGI or endless shooting matches where everyone keeps missing the stars over and over again. The overuse of technology is destroying the arts in general; let's hope the Koreans don't fall into the same fetish with spectacle that the US and Japan (other than Miike and Sono) have fallen into. It was nice to hear the beautiful song, "Old and Wise" for the final karaoke scene, but I'm not sure it made made that much sense...

WIth just over 3,000 ratings on IMDb, "A Dirty Carnival" probably qualifies as my #1 film most people have never heard of. This film encapsulates just about everything I love about foreign film: Action, oddball comedy, revenge, uncomfortable-love, and gangsta-stuff.THere's something quite genuine about the lead character here. It's more of a mediocre rise to the top compared to say "Scarface", and the comedy really sets an entirely different tone compared to all other gangster films with heavy themes and/or endings.The film is an absolute gem. The acting, the fight choreography, the laughs, and evolution of the lead character in the storyline will keep you glued to the screen."Twilight Samurai" is a 10 for me, but it has 15,000 votes, and a bit more notoriety. A Dirty Carnival is a total departure. WHereas Samurai is dead serious and slow burning, "Carnival" is light-hearted and fast-paced.This is one to move to the top of your list.91/100 FOr what it's worth - I loved the ending - couldn't have been any other way. Sleeper gem. There's just something special about this.I usually include a list of "You'll like this if you liked___,___,___", and I say whether I liked them better or not, but if I make that list and then say I like it as much or more than say Casino, Scarface, State of Grace, or whatever - it wouldn't do justice for my "useful" ratings, or for what is a truly original, great film here. Rent it, heck, BUY it.

A tale of betrayal & motivation in the Korean mob life, A Dirty Carnival concerns a 29-year old gangster working for a middle-rank enforcer whose rise begins after he takes up a job that earns him the big boss' trust & eliminates his boss to take up his position instead. But the real trouble begins when his friend, an aspiring filmmaker, asks him to be a consultant for his debut features which brings forth the events that were buried long ago.There isn't much to complain in most of the film's aspects as everything is carried out pretty well be it the direction, screenplay, cinematography, editing or performances but the one thing I admire most about it is the action choreography for it puts on screen an impressive example of street fighting in the opening moments only & repeats itself at regular intervals throughout the film plus it's amazingly well accompanied by its electronic score.On an overall scale, A Dirty Carnival presents a really fine effort from its cast & crew to come out as a nicely crafted crime-drama but it's also missing that X-factor that elevates a film like this to a level of greatness & the sum of the parts don't add up as well as I would've liked it to. Still, A Dirty Carnival works in many ways & steadily captures the zero tolerance principle of Korean mob life. Recommended for fans of Asian cinema.