[ !!!!!!SPOILER METER!!!!!! I will talk about a couple of key scenes but I will not be detailing the ending, like exactly what happens to who and who happens to what. So read if you don't care, avoid if you want to enjoy the movie in all its good flow but whatever it is you choose, please, don't restrain yourself— perve the crap out of your heart at Won Bin xDDDDDD ]
Every now and then, you watch a film that shifts the way you look at the cinematic scene just that little bit differently.
And every now and then, you look at Won Bin and you find yourself painfully racking your brain, wondering, pondering, calculating… is it possible for anyone to actually be that freaking good-looking? Even with all that fake blood smeared all over his face?
The answer to that is neh. Hell neh.
But then again, who said I was looking at the man’s face?
Yeah as if you didn’t grin yourself stoopid when you laid eyes on the above *mops drool from feet* Let’s face it, the, er, visual beauty of this scene is worth the price of admission alone but if you can refocus your mind away from Won Bin‘s abs, this was, without a doubt, a very symbolic and significant turning point in the film. This was the moment we witnessed our hero “shed off” his past. He no longer wanted to carry the weight, he no longer wanted to hide, nor could he. It was the character’s moment of truth, the moment the fire inside him was reignited and a sense of purpose reborn within. Someone needed his help and he was determined to give all that he had to save her. For so long now he had been confining himself to his own world, but now, the outside world had meddled its way in. So what does that mean for the rest of us? Well, let’s just say we are about to be taken in for nothing short of a complete one-man-ass-kickin’ show (complete with THE BEST KNIFE scene ever.) And neh, it is definitely gonna be suupah fiiine-lookin’.
When I first heard that Won Bin was taking on the lead role in Ahjusshi aka The Man From Nowhere, I immediately thought to myself, “Is this guy just making his way around the family? Firstly, there was My Brother, then there was Mother, now we have, er, Ahjusshi… as in Uncle? Can you please just do a romantic comedy already, something a bit more light-hearted that just makes us all girls (and some guys!) WANT to be the leading female in the movie for once?”
But then, every time you watch Won Bin, you simply come away blown away.
What I like most about Won Bin (apart from the physiCAL obvious~~) is that he doesn’t seem to shy away from playing characters that are completely different to his last. He is always on the lookout to challenge himself. And more often than not, he succeeds. If you think about it, there has been nothing that he’s been in that has left you with even the slightest case of “What were you thinking?” (Well, maybe that 2002 joint Korean-Japanese series, Friends, co-starring Fukada Kyoko. As short and sweet as it was, I’m sorry, I just didn’t entirely geddit (´・ω・｀)) His filmography isn’t extensive, and post-military, Won Bin seems to be even more selective of his acting jobs, but I believe it just goes to show that he isn’t the type to force himself into just any role. Rather, it seems like he simply waits for the right role to appear before him. And perhaps as a result, we know that he’s not going to churn out crap (unlike a certain other celebrity whom I fell for once upon a time before the army got to him *coughs*So Ji Sub*coughs**chokes*~~…)
The Man From Nowhere tells the story of a mysterious man who develops an unlikely friendship with a young girl. A drug bust that goes wrong leads the main characters into a dangerous underground world of raunchy jacuzzi activities, human body organ trafficking, child slavery and whack-head criminals— it’s not exactly an excursion you would wanna sign up for. Won “I’d like to see you take a bad photo of me” Bin plays the lead role of Cha Tae Sik, a reticent, enigmatic, dishevelled looking man with a flank of hair permanently attached to the right side of his face (jicks: “Hey! Eita! Eita-kun! You’ve rocked that look before haven’tcha?” Eita: “jicksy-chan ! Hai ! Hai ! I totally have indeed! But… my hair ain’t as smooth and shiny or anywhere near as healthy-looking as this ah…ju…sshi…” jicks: “Naw, don’t worry Eita-kun, your frizz is da shiz! Perhaps one day, you and Won Bin san will end up working in the same film together and Won Bin san will share his hair-maintenance secrets with you then?” *randomly wishes scenario will come true* <<—er, the Eita and Won Bin in the same film sitch that is, not the Eita and jicksy conversation scenario… *cocks left eyebrow & puts pinky to lip, Dr-Evil-style* ;))))))) Within the opening moments of the film, we see Tae Sik solemnly make his way back to an old, uneyecatching building. The camera pans to one of his hands, which we see is delicately holding onto a small bunch of white daisies, and immediately you feel that this man may just not be as gloomy as his façade may convey. There’s definitely an underlying tenderness about him.
As soon as he enters the building, he stops, and while the viewers can not see or sense a single freaking other thing in sight, Tae Sik knows instantly there is someone there. “Come out now. Or I’ll kill you,” he projects softly but authoritatively. In hindsight now, seeing how fine-tuned his senses are, it is obviously clear— our hero is definitely no ordinary man.
A young girl emerges from the shadows around the stairwell, her hair somewhat unkempt and her face, well, it could do with a good scrubbin’. She follows Tae Sik back to his apartment (which he also uses as a pawn shop,) and essentially invites herself in as they end up sharing a meal together. Although Tae Sik isn’t overly hospitable in his, ah, hosting services, the two do seem to be naturally comfortable in each other’s presence— you get the feeling that Tae Sik has spent alot of time with this girl before. Now before you cringe and worry that this may just turn a little Michael Jackson on us, please, fret a little less (okay, sorry, that was a joke. A little cheap but… it’s all in good fun. Much love to the King Of Pop always. Truly, your art will forever live on <3)
Soon enough we learn that the girl’s name is So Mi (played brilliantly by Kim Rae Son,) and she may look a little rough around the edges but there is a definite glow of energy about her. It’s not really your typical “Oh my gawsh! You’re so adorable! Lemme pinch your cheeks!” vibe per se but it’s a more of a… wise-beyond-her-years-whilst-maintaining-her-innocence kinda deal happening. Which makes her drug-addict-of-a-mother pretty darn fortunate, because considering the woman’s fitness as a guardian (or lack thereof rather,) let’s just say if they had parent licences going, she would’ve been long stripped of hers. Instead, well, she is stripped, but we’re talking of clothes, as we realise hard and fast that she is the type of woman to bring strange men home, drink to the point of intoxication and on top of that, intervening deep and nastily into narcotics- and just in case you are wondering, no, this is not an ideal combination.
Getting a grip on the hole-of-an-environment that So Mi has to live in every single day of her young life, you can not help but overlook some of the misbehaviours that she may have. At the bottom of it all you can see she just wants to be like any other child— we see her painting her friends’ nails and drawing cute little Asian emoticons on them, we see her patch people’s wounds up with cute little print bandaids, and there is a certain twinkle in her eye and a zestful bounce to her step— but soon enough, we are confronted with seeing So Mi take things from other people that don’t belong to her. Things that she hasn’t paid for. There is a scene where our ahjusshi and So Mi are in a small convenience store together and So Mi sneaks outside with a small handful of goods as the harabeoji store-owner keeps his head down reading his newspaper. Tae Sik walks up to the counter and places a few bills down but the harabeoji, still looking down at his paper, simply lets it slide— “Don’t worry about it. Just let her be. It’s her only way for survival. She will learn on herself soon enough.” I’m thinking,”Harabeoji ! You so wise!” *sees stars* But in all seriousness, his words are so right. So Mi isn’t really stealing for attention, she isn’t stealing for fun and she definitely isn’t stealing simply to be a little freaking brat. It’s not the right thing to do by any means but this is the only way she knows how to live. We can see that So Mi is, at the core, a good girl, so we can rest assured that soon enough, it will all become clear to her. We trust that she will eventually work it out for herself.
One of my favourite moments of the entire film follows the scene where So Mi is accused of stealing the bag of a fellow student, being verbally and physically attacked by the student’s mother. A (pretty much close-to-useless) policeman dabbles in and asks So Mi if her parents are around. She points up across the street and Tae Sik is standing there- he had been watching all this time in silence. “That’s your father?” the policeman asks, but as soon as he does so, Tae Sik turns his back and walks off. The two later meet and So Mi reveals her feelings:
“Ahjusshi… I embarrass you too, right? That’s why you ignored me back there? It’s okay. My teacher and all the kids at school do it, too. Mum said that if I ever became lost, I should just forget our address and phone number. She gets drunk and says we should die. Even though that pig called me a bum… you’re meaner. But I don’t hate you. Because if I do, I won’t have a single person in this world to like. Thinking about it hurts me here *touches her heart.* So, don’t worry, I won’t hate you.”
She leaves and hands him a Yu-Gi-Oh card of The Dark Knight, the caption on it saying ‘Beats everything.’ I mean, Oh EM to the Jee, can we get a hanky here please Y_Y ‘Beats everything’— this is how So Mi saw Tae Sik. He was someone who she looked up to and depended on, someone who she thought was better than anything and anyone she had ever come across in her life because he had always been the only one there when she had nowhere else to go. Whenever So Mi felt like she couldn’t go home, whenever she needed to run away from her mother’s messy antics, Tae Sik never stopped her from seeking shelter in his home- he had embraced her unconditionally. The two had a silent bond and understanding that went beyond words, which is why that even though So Mi‘s heart was breaking, she was still able to forgive the man because what he meant to her outweighed all the pain and hurt she was feeling at that instant . At this very moment, in Tae Sik‘s eyes, we see something glisten. Without a single word being spoken, we could see that Tae Sik had been moved— we felt it. Whether he had planned for it or not, So Mi had innately become an important figure in Tae Sik‘s life. These two had become family.
The ability to convey emotion without any speech at all was one of the things that really impressed me about Won Bin‘s performance in the film. Through subtle nuances, through body language and most predominantly, through his eyes, Won Bin was able to get you feeling all the melancholy of the character- his losses, his isolation, his subsequent fury and relentlessness. He made you wanna geddup outta ya chair and pounce on him the bad guys slyly attacking him from behind (and protect his beautiful face from scars.) He made you wanna throw pompoms up in the air and cheer on his enslaught towards killing every single last one of those motherf**kers. As one of his long time fans, I know I am not alone when I say this- seeing Won Bin really coming into his own as an actor and picking up numerous awards and accolades for his performance in this film is a true pleasure. And for some silly reason, it kinda makes me proud. Like, “Oh My Gawd, you’ve come such a long way from your beautiful Han Tae Suhk days,” *hearts* *tear* and, “Oh My Gawd, you may remind some of a certain Dorama King from The Land Of The Rising Sun but your cinematic performances are so, SO much more diverse and better.” (Memo to SMAP‘s best singer(?,) er, dancer(?,) er, actor(~~)… daisuki desu… to the end of eternity, lol.) One of the best scenes that demonstrated this huge progression is the flashback where we witness his wife get killed in a planned motor collision. Virtually at the same instant as the crash, Tae Sik (who was returning to the car that is now slowly erupting into flames) is shot by an assassin right to the bloody ground. He collapses abruptly, the multiple bullets to his body unquestionably causing him immense amounts of pain but you could see that it was nothing— NOTHING— in comparison to watching his wife die right before him. The smouldering redness in his eyes, the tears brimming, the veins trembling in his face, his quivering hand stretching out to her as he was writhing frenziedly on the ground… The Man From Nowhere more than reaffirms to the doubters that Won Bin doesn’t just rest on all the pretty features the deities gave him— he actually uses them (Oh Mr Solo Superstar YamaPi-Pi? Oh Pi-Pi? Are you hearing us? LOL. Okay, gomen, gomen, another cheap shot from jicks but hey, it would be wrong if I didn’t mention it~~ Bless you Pi, News, and Ryo-chan.. mina-san, ganbatte! Ganbatte!^^ lol.)
Not only does Won Bin prove to us he can be a dramatic actor, the man also transforms into a bona fide action hero movie star, displaying an array of slick fighting moves en route to finding and rescuing So Mi that will make some of us squirm and some of us celebrate at the top of our lungs. But Tae Sik wasn’t the only one splashing other people’s blood around the joint. Make no mistake, this film is violent, brutal and downright graphic in many parts (think close-ups of eyes being stretched open by surgical-like instruments, staple guns shooting at random body parts complete with live sound-effects and hair-dryers not being used to dry hair… *SHIVER SHIVER* *SQUIRM SQUIRM*) I remember sitting next to another girl in the cinema and we were both constantly covering our eyes and/or burying our faces so much to the point that we ended up giggling hysterically at each other at one stage (at least she had her boyfriend/husband in the next seat to protect her though. I, on the other hand… well, I had my small carton of popcorn… that’s right, it wasn’t even a friggin’ large~~ -_-;) but I have to say, the action was superbly-paced and it found a way to climax at the right time. Not once did I think to myself, “Well, this gore-tastic scene is totally pointless” because nothing was. Nothing really felt out of place or overdone (actually, fine, there was one scene, not that there was violence involved though. It was somewhere near the end where Tae Sik and So Mi go to hug each other- all I can say is there was a bit of slo-mo action that I could’ve lived without.)
This is a film that was crafted in a very purposeful, stylistic, neo-noir way but it never winds up suffocating you. It is clear that director Lee Jeong Beom had a vision, and while some may possibly consider it too “thought out,” for me, everything about it just felt right— the film just made sense. I especially loved the icy, steel blue colour palette that dominated a good chunk of the film because it really accentuated the exile of the characters— their desolation, their pain and their angst. While the film did offset a definite flair, it also ably projected a great deal of grittiness that drew us into feeling as if we were right there during many, many moments of the film. And you sure as damn well could smell the flippin’ blood during that short but glorious knife scene in the final stages of the film where Tae Sik battles one of the more respectable bad guys, Ramrowan (played by Thai actor Thanayong Wongtrakul… yep, Thai actors are so very cool xDD Huh? Mario who? *cough*cough*) Truly lives up the hype (in fact, I want more!)— the intimate, first-hand camera angles; the live, prickling metallic sounds of the knives; the dexterous martial arts moves that made even Jackie Chan look a little clumsy… seriously, you will flinch as if you were the one trying to dodge the sharp, ice-cold blade(s.) I can not say it enough, this scene has it all. And it should be enshrined! It’s totally scene-of-honour material.
But The Man From Nowhere doesn’t just bank on this one epic moment, as ultimately, the story between our hero Tae Sik and our beloved little So Mi is what keeps us gripped right to the very end. The “Cool badass man saves sweet little girl” plot to the film actually reminds me alot of Man On Fire (where Denzel Washington and Dokata Fanning absolutely killed it- in the best possible way ever~~:D) but Won Bin and Kim Sae Won truly solidified their worth to us as a viable pair of companions you wanted to root for. The two of them bounced perfectly off each other. And it felt effortless, too. By the end of the film, you’d probably wanna have Won Bin‘s babies just because it seems like he would totally make an awesome father xDD
But then again, if being Mrs Won Bin means you have to live your life on knife-edge (lame pun intended,) then I’m thinking I’d rather not. Especially if you have to encounter drug-dealing, organ-trafficking, womanising-sleazebag-loonies like this dude…
Kinda makes Freddy Kruger look huggable, doesn’t he? (Btw, shout out to Kim Sung Oh for acting his butt off to make us all cringe at his totally deranged character.)
Now, I couldn’t possibly leave you with a final image like that so may I please share something I found treasured away on my computer:
……
Drool, OVER xDD
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[ Image credits: The pictures I used throughout this post were randomly collected from other websites and blogs, however, I failed (!) to record any urls and page names at the time... brain slip? -_- | | | Feel free to leave comment to abuse me as necessary, or, if you believe I owe you a credit... I will endeavour to amend asap :) ]
(^^Photo credit: The Doramas )
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