Film Review: The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil

Enemies team up to hunt for a serial killer in a fun but predictable vehicle for South Korean star Don Lee.

Don Lee and Kim Moo-yul

Don Lee, also known as Ma Dong-seok, steals every one of his scenes in The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil, an entertaining if derivative genre piece opening June 7 from WellGo USA Entertainment. The movie pits a won’t-follow-the-rules cop and a besieged-on-all-sides crime boss against a serial killer who finds victims by crashing into their cars. The second feature from director Lee Won-tae, who got his start in television, the movie feels like any other mainstream crime thriller. But the burly, charismatic Lee almost singlehandedly lifts the film out of the ordinary.

The “cop” storyline follows Jung Tae-seok ( a hothead convinced that recent murders are connected. Once he proves a serial killer is involved, Tae’s replaced on the case by a special task force. Ignoring a superior who’s on the take, Tae works under the radar, flushing out informers by making a nuisance of himself (and ignoring his growing backlog of cases).

Don Lee and crew

The gangland scenes are formulaic as well: standoffs between dons in offices and restaurants, followed by full-scale onslaughts in nightclubs and warehouses. With his criminal empire potentially slipping away, Jang Dong-su (Lee) argues for peace and cooperation—until they no longer work.

The ensuing mayhem is indifferently staged, apart from Lee himself, who executes stunts with bone-crunching precision. He grimaces in disbelief when attacked, and responds with no-nonsense blows, flips, kicks, and head butts. Lee works best on an intimate level, the camera in close whether he’s beating or being beaten.

The film’s most vicious encounter is Dong’s fight with the killer, Kang Kyung (Kim Sung-kyu), a one-sided knife fight on a deserted street at night. Gravely wounded, Dong manages to survive. That’s when the movie’s real narrative engine emerges: Dong-su and Tae-seok strike an uneasy alliance to capture the “devil,” a strategy Fritz Lang used in M.

M‘s killer was Peter Lorre, in a performance so unguarded and revealing it made him an international star. Kim Sung-kyu resorts instead to snarls, sneers and other tics, unable or unwilling to show why his characters kills. (A cop does refer to abuse he suffered as a child, a tired dodge.)

Kim Moo-yul

Kim Moo-yul tends to overact as the cop, adopting tough-guy stances while spitting out his lines. In comparison, Don Lee is remarkably understated, his gangster confident in his ability to erupt at will.  It’s a variation on a role he’s perfected in a string of taut, hard-edged thrillers, notably last year’s Unstoppable and 2017’s The Outlaws.

Lee may be South Korea’s hardest-working action star, as well as one of its most popular. He’s appeared in over a dozen features since his breakout role in 2016’s Train to Busan, and has five more films in the pipeline before he enters the Marvel Cinematic Universe in The Eternals. What’s more, Lee will reprise his role here in an American remake produced in part by Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions.

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