Choi Min-sik seems to always find a way to survive in NAMELESS GANGSTER
CHOI MIN-SIK: MR. VENGEANCE — NAMELESS GANGSTER: RULES OF THE TIME (BUMCHOIWAUI JUNJAENG) (Yun Jong-bin, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Saturday, June 30, 9:00, and Tuesday, July 3, 1:00
Festival runs June 29 – July 12
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In 1990, Roh Tae-woo, the thirteenth president of South Korea, officially declared war on organized crime. Writer-director Yun Jong-bin goes back to that dramatic period in the 2012 epic mob thriller Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time. Korean star Choi Min-sik (Oldboy) put on a few pounds to play the roly-poly Choi Ik-hyun, a corrupt Customs inspector who soon immerses himself in Busan’s underworld culture. A goofy, pathetic figure who drinks too much and has no loyalty to anyone but himself, Choi seems to always find a way to survive despite his infuriatingly stupid decisions. He uses his family connections to team up with his godson, Choi Hyung-bae (Ha Jung-woo), a smooth, ultracool gangster who is continually suspicious of his godfather, and to convince determined prosecutor Choi Joo-dong (Kim Eung-soo) not to lock him up and throw away the key. Things come to a head when he gets involved with Kim Pan-ho (Jo Jin-woong) and a casino hotel, leading to violence, betrayal, and whimpering. Told primarily in flashback set in the 1980s, Nameless Gangster is a potent blend of mob drama and comedy, as Yun (The Moonlight of Seoul, The Unforgiven) mixes in elements of such genre classics as Goodfellas and The Godfather while also telling the story of a changing Korea. Choi Min-sik is a hoot as Choi Ik-hyun, a putz who just keeps on keepin’ on, his round face and puppy-dog eyes somehow helping to keep him alive even as he essentially demands to get whacked. Nameless Gangster is screening June 30 at 9:00 and July 3 at 1:00 at the New York Asian Film Festival at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, where it is part of the sidebar event “Choi Min-sik: Mr. Vengeance,” which also includes 2001’s Failan, 2003’s Oldboy, and 2005’s Crying Fist. Choi Min-sik will be on hand for the June 30 screening to talk about the film and his fascinating career.
The second in director Park Chan-wook’s revenge trilogy (in between Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and the 2005 New York Film Festival selection Sympathy For Lady Vengeance), Oldboy is a twisted, perverse psychological thriller that won the Grand Prix de Jury at Cannes, among many other international awards. Choi Min-sik (Chihwaseon) stars as Oh Dae-su, a man who has been imprisoned for fifteen years — but he doesn’t know why, or by whom. When he is finally released, his search for the truth becomes part of a conspiracy game, as he can seemingly trust no one. As he gets closer to finding everything out, the gore and terror continues to increase. Choi is outstanding as the wild-haired Dae-su in Park’s awesome rampage of a film, which is not for the faint of heart. On the DVD, the extras include audio commentary and deleted scenes in which Park discusses how embarrassing it is doing audio commentary and showing deleted scenes, but you can hear him discuss Oldboy in person on June 30 at 1:00 with costar Yoon Jin-seo at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, where it is being screened at the special New York Asian Film Festival sidebar event “Choi Min-sik: Mr. Vengeance,” which looks at the fascinating career of the popular Korean actor and activist, who left the business for several years in protest over controversial screen quotas. The series also includes 2001’s Failan, 2005’s Crying Fist, and this year’s Nameless Gangster.
While changing the face of Hollywood cinema with The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, American auteur Francis Ford Coppola snuck in yet another 1970s masterpiece, the dark psychological thriller The Conversation. Gene Hackman gives a riveting performance as Harry Caul, an audio surveillance expert who has been hired to record a meeting between two people (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest) in Union Square in San Francisco. Thinking that he might have stumbled onto a murder plot, Caul soon finds himself in the middle of a dangerous conspiracy that threatens the lives of all those involved. The Conversation is a gripping, taut examination of obsession, paranoia, and loneliness as well as an exploration of language and communication. Caul might spend most of his time listening in on the intimate conversations of others, but he is an intensely private individual who is extremely uncomfortable in his own skin. A deeply religious man who also plays the saxophone, Caul has trouble relating to other people; Hackman is particularly outstanding in a party scene where Caul is forced to talk shop with fellow surveillance expert Bernie Moran (Allen Garfield), who wants to know Caul’s secrets, but the always nervous Caul isn’t about to share everything. The supporting cast, which also features Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall, Teri Garr, and John Cazale, is exceptional, but this is Hackman’s show all the way, leading to one of the great endings in the history of cinema. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, The Conversation is screening June 23 & 24 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “Paramount in the 1970s,” a month of films from the studio that changed the shape of American popular cinema during the decade that began with the Vietnam War and ended with the Reagan revolution. The series, which celebrates Paramount’s centennial, also includes such films as Peter Yates’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle, John Badham’s Saturday Night Fever, Robert Altman’s Nashville, and Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven.