My husband enjoys movies produced in Asia and the Orient. We watch a fair amount of those. The old "seven samurai" ranks as one of his favorites. I say that as an explanation that despite some familiarity with some foreign movies (not that we're experts by any means), and acceptance of some things as inexplicable cultural differences, I wanted to like this movie more than I did. It seemed well acted, the settings seemed authentic and interesting, the situations seemed real and sincere. But as my husband and I watched it there were a lot of times when we would look at each other in total confusion. "Now what just happened? Can you 'splain that to me?" I mean, I expect a certain amount of cultural differences, but often the character's reactions and motivations seemed completely baffling to us. We just shrugged and figured that if we knew the culture better we'd have understood. As it was, a lot of it went right over our heads.

I am surprised and encouraged by the quality films I've seen out of Korea. Chingoo is a touching first-person story about 4 boyhood friends and the way their lives unfold from carefree boyish cluelessness to the inevitable.There are flashy, chaotic,violent films like Pulp Fiction which become instant cult classics because they are not chaotic at all, but crafted immaculately. But the characters in Pulp Fiction are just that- unreal, comic-book lowlives who inadvertently display a few human characteristics while going about their destructive, pulp-fiction lives.Chingoo comes from the other direction, although it too is crafted superbly. No flash. Instead of the cool junkie Vincent portrayed by John Travolta, Joon-suk ably evokes a glimpse of the personal hellworld of addiction...and later wryly comments that he found the will to clean up after he saw he was losing ground in the gangster corporate hierarchy. Very much the CEO material. Yes, he coulda been a corporate contendah….and 500 years earlier he would have been the Korean equivalent of a Samurai daimyo…if only..These are real human characters growing up in a society that is rigidly disciplined, yet dynamic- and their paths take them literally on an escalator of fate to adulthood with just a whimsical struggle of will by Joon-suk, the protagonist, the main toughguy. He evokes the late Lee Strasberg's famous line from The Godfather, "These are the lives we've chosen," in the stolidity with which he accepts the horror of being a gangster. But he's a better man than the Godfather or the Pacino Godfather. He shows loyalty goes both ways.Thirty minutes after Pulp Fiction, you're hungry- in fact, there's no story to digest at all. It's a fairytale as it intends. Chingoo sticks to your ribs (spoiler pun) by building real characters and taking real themes and hinting at issues that torment great men. Unfortunately, the film is true to the clime, and there are no great women characters. I suppose that's true of the Godfather too. Gangsters just aren't chick-flick material.Chingoo delivers a supposedly autobiographical story by the director which tells me yet again that life is stranger, realer, better than pulp fiction. Well worth viewing.

If there were a movie out that resembled my story style, it would be this one. I guess to that credit, i gave it some unfair bias =)The elements of the story are like most of mine: Good setup and character development at beginning Wanes a bit in the middle Awesome End Underlying message trying to be conveyedThis is a beautifully told story and the fact that's its based upon the director's true life makes it better.My only complaint is the lack of development on the shrimpy character. THe movie starts out displaying the FOUR friendships and develops on that really well. Yet near the middle of the movie, the focus seems to be on the two gangsters and the narrator. It may be b/c that's how it was in reality, but the fourth character, I thought, needed to given more of the story, at least fictional roles just for balancing purposes.Other than a few carping details, I loved the film.The end owns and the quote from the beginning is quite relevant. The whole story displays LIFE and has reinforced what i believe life accounts - Memories. It is a series of memories and a series of moments that truly touches the heart and will perhaps make you realize memories of your own and how important and effective they are.8/10

As mentioned in the earlier comment here, this movie is beautifully filmed with great cinematography, but...The first half (before two of the friends went to colleges elsewhere) of the movie brilliantly portrayed the relationships between these four friends and their differences. However, the second half of the story is not as good as the first. Sure, it illustrated the friendship between "Sang-taek" and "Joon-suk" and the parting of "Joon-suk" and "Dong-su" in great details, but we never see the two college-goers involve in the conflicts between "Joon-suk" and "Dong-su".I'm disappointed that "Joong-ho" did not get a chance to further develop the character and the involvement in the conflict (e.g. which side of the conflict did he sided with?). He became just a comic relieve type of character in the movie, which is sad. They movie could have developed all four characters around their life-long bond in a more balanced and thorough way.The friendship between "Sang-taek" and "Joon-suk" can be touching at moments. "Joon-suk" took care of "Sang-taek" took care of each others from time to time, and at the end "Sang-taek" never leave his friend (obviously "Joon-suk" was heading for an execution) even though he killed one of them.At the end of the movie "Joon-suk" said something like: "... I thought Joon-suk and Dong-su were together on the same path..." (I watched the movie with Chinese subtitle... so hopefully the translation did not loose the original meaning). They are until the end. "Dong-su" always want to be at the same position of "Joon-suk". That's the tragedy of the four.I'm relieved that it doesn't emphasize around the action scenes (they are brief but stunning none the less) as some of the Hong Kong movies of the same sort. This movie is not just about gangsters' war.This is a good movie to watch if you are tired of the usual Hollywood flicks. However, it lacks just a little bit to make it into a truly great movie.