The Man From Nowhere

Directed by: Jeong-beom Lee

Starring: Bin Won, Sae-ron Kim, Hyo-seo Kim

Synopsis:

Cha Tae-shik (Bin Won) is an insular young man who runs a pawn shop. A brittle friendship slowly develops between himself and So-mi, the little girl next door who lives with her junkie stripper mother, Hyo-jeong. Hyo-jeong and her boyfriend seize an opportunity to steal a shipment of heroin from a drug trafficking organization and entrusts Tae-shik with the product, without letting him know. The traffickers find out about her smuggling and kidnap both Hyo-jeong and So-mi. The gang promises to release them if Tae-shik makes a delivery for them, however it actually is a larger plot to eliminate a rival drug ring leader. When Tae-shik realizes that he’s been duped and So-mi's life is still in danger, Tae-shik becomes enraged and prepares for a battle, putting his own life at risk.

Review:

The Man From Nowhere is a hard edged thriller which borrows from both Leon and Taken, and matches both of those films in the action department. The film starts with the police attempting to arrest some gangsters in the middle of a drugs deal at a nightclub. One of the gangsters is about the size of an ox, and it takes the cops a long time to subdue the guy. In the meantime, Hyo-jeon, a stripper at the nightclub, has made her play for the drugs.

Then we are introduced to shaggy-haired Cha Tae-shik, a head-down kind of guy so he doesn’t make eye contact with anyone. He has cut himself off from the world, and it doesn’t take a genius to realise a tragedy is at the heart of it. However the cute-as-hell So-mi has managed to crack his outer shell a tiny bit, doing little tasks for him such as updating his mp3 player.

So-mi is a tragic figure and very well played. She could have become very annoying but instead you really feel for her. Neglected by her mother, she more or less looks after herself but at heart is very much a child and very naïve. There’s a scene late on where she discovers something tragic, but the news isn’t as upsetting to her as the fact someone lied to her about it. It blows her mind that someone would do something so terrible.

One night Cha Tae-shik arrives at his shop and discovers he’s been broken into. Inside are three guys – one is the talker and brandishing a knife. One is the ox from the beginning of the film. And the third is some ex-Special Forces mercenary type. Things happen very quickly, and suddenly you realise that this foppish pretty-boy is actually a serious badass. In no time at all, Cha Tae-shik has disarmed the talker and taken out the ox. The mercenary guy hasn’t moved a muscle. The mercenary guy is really cool, and you know that he’s a badass too when he’s the only character to acknowledge that Cha-Tae-shik might be a big problem. Takes one to know one.

When Cha Tae-shik finds out they have So-mi, he is co-erced into making a delivery for her abductors. However he discovers it is a trick to set up another crimelord and as a result finds himself in custody of the police. But it’s not long before he is out and about and cutting a swathe through the criminal underground to follow the trail to So-mi.

Sometimes the film delivers just the “before” and “after” scenes, leaving it to your imagination as to what happened in between, but the final twenty minutes are just one long action scene which delivers shootouts, executions, explosions, another amazing shootout and some of the best knife-fighting ever put to celluloid. And the fight between Cha Tae-shik and the mercenary proves to be the highpoint in an already excellent set piece.

Verdict:

A gritty, harsh and well-executed action movie. Fans of Leon, Taken and Oldboy owe it to themselves to check out The Man From Nowhere .

8 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)

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