MBunge Perhaps more than any other genre in cinema, Asian martial arts movies are an acquired taste. It's not just that they have so many conventions and tropes you have to accept. It's that the better they are, the more their stories reflect the unique social and cultural aspects of their countries of origin, the less appealing they are to someone who just wants to watch people getting karate chopped. The City of Violence is a pretty good Asian martial arts movie. Whether you enjoy it depends on how much of a taste you've acquired for that sort of thing.Set in Korea, Taetsoo (Doo-hong Jung) is a police officer in Seoul who gets word that one of his boyhood friends is dead and returns to his hometown to look into it. Wangjae (Kil-Kang Ahn) was the toughest and boldest of the boys and grew into a leader of the gangs that have always run Taetsoo's hometown. Then he left the gang life behind when he married and settled down as a private citizen. He turned the control of his gangs over to another of the childhood chums, Pilho (Beom-su Lee), who's used his illicit power to bring a casino development to town. After Wangjae ends up dead in an alley, Taetsoo and another old friend, the hot-headed Seokhwan (Seung-wan Ryoo), investigate what happened. T he true story leads to Seokhwan's worthless brother Donghwan (Seokt-yong Jeong) and two of those martial arts fight scenes where two guys have to battle dozens of enemies at the same time.The fight scenes are always the most important element of this type of film and The City of Violence delivers. There's very little one-on-one action where it looks more like ballet than combat and there's none of that wire-fu stuff with superhuman leaps and feats of strength, but there's plenty of rough and bloody battle. It's very much in the style of Jackie Chan where there's lot of running and spinning and using whatever's handy for defense and attack. The guys playing Taetsoo and Seokhwan help the puncture the melodrama and keep things from getting too overwrought. As the challenges before them grow, they both evince a "you've got to be kidding me" weariness that gives some emotional realism to the physically fantastic action going on. The fight scenes also look really good, unlike many American action flicks where you literally can't tell what the heck is going on.The story of 4 old friends brought together by death and vengeance is fairly compelling and the acting seems good, though it's always hard to tell. Asian performances can have such different emotional pacing and inflection that it can be a little hard to follow. Beom-su Lee as Pilho, however, pulls off a seamless mixture of weakness and strength as a street kid grown up and out of his depth.Like most Asian martial arts films, there are plenty of things you have to go along with in The City of Violence…such as the kid gangs all having costume themes like something from the old Batman TV show and that this story apparently occurs in a reality where guns where never invented. But if you can accept all that, and you're not just looking for mindless violence, I think you'll like this movie.

Angelus2 A cop returns to his old town after the death of a friend and decides to investigate. He realises that this is not the town he left behind, new gangs have arrived and old friends have changed.The storyline is old, about justice and revenge intertwined. However, this movie does promise one thing, a spectacular fight scenes. Doo Hung Jung is someone to watch out for.The film is long and the end is quite predictable, but the fight scenes keep the movie going. Especially when Doo Hung Jung runs across town as gangs chase him. But it is the end fight scene that is the viewers greatest reward, we witness two friends with nothing to lose go to battle with swords as they make their way to the boss by going through his army of thugs. Simply fantastic.

dbborroughs Amusingly violent and funny action story done in a style best described as film noir (plot) meets spaghetti western (music) meet Asian action film. Its the story of an organized crime detective who goes home for the funeral of a boyhood friend. Sensing something was wrong about the case he and another friend begin to investigate and find that the city they grew up in has changed and that somethings are better left undiscovered.This is a neat little film. Its not the be all and end all, but it fires along in its own bloody way for 90 entertaining minutes. The dialog is witty and is the sort of thing you wish you and your friends would come up with. The characters are also the sort of people you know and that familiarity helps make it easy for you to ride along as the plot unfolds, largely as you expect it will. The action is quite good but it is often bloody, so you may not want to watch those parts if you don't like the red stuff. This movie is a great deal of fun in the right frame of mind. Worth a look.(The film reminds me of what Quentin Tarantino might produce were he not insistent on making references and paying homage to obscure little films. Its a thought that I had prior to the end fight which reminded me, in away, of the House of Blue Leaves segment from the first Kill Bill. For the record I like the sequence here better since it plays more real and doesn't go on and on and on)

andjel_ko We can say it is a Kill Bill kind of movie, but it is more an Asian 70-es kind of movie. Kill Bill is more City of violence kind of movie, although I'm sure everyone will be comparing it with Kill Bill when it reaches America - probably next year.This is not a masterpiece, but still a very good and simple movie. And there are many reasons why i liked it and only a few why i didn't. It was short, but not too short. Fighting in the movie is incredible, realistic and unrealistic in the same time. I mean it is unrealistic that a man defeat so many deadly enemies and stands after receiving so many punches, but kicks alone are very realistic. The fighting is a real thing, without special effects or ropes, and all you gotta do is sit and enjoy the fight.The best fighter in the movie is well known Korean actor Jeong Du-hong who plays a roll of a police officer Tae-su whose friend has been killed. He decides to find the killer and gets help from other friends from the past but he will soon realize that the killer is actually one of his friends - Pil-ho. That fact is obvious from the beginning of the movie but don't spoil the movie. In fact, it is interesting to watch the game of Pil-ho who is now a gangster and wait for his end as we have waited for Bill to die in Kill Bill (now I'm comparing them myself)Five friends are main characters in this movie which tells a story about their showdown in present and friendship in past. Drama part of the movie is not done perfectly but everyone should get the point. The Director Ryoo Seung-wan also did Crying Fist, more dramatic and longer movie but there must be something the same about this two films because i love them both very much. And the next thing to do is to find other Ryoo Seung-wan movies like No Blood no tears, and Die bad and see if this is really another great Korean director as Chan-wook Park and Ki-duk Kim.As for City of Violence, if you like fighting you shouldn't miss this one.