Prior to Korea being called the new Hong Kong of films (How’s that for an oxymoron!), the titles that gave Korea that status were few in the beginning. Including the excellent, and hilarious My Sassy Girl (Highly recommended), this, My Wife is a Gangster was another prominent movie in showing that Korea could compete with the other Asian markets in both budget, story telling and quality of film making.

Warner Brothers, Disney (inc Miramax and Beuna Vista), Sony Columbia Pictures and New Line Cinema have all been snapping up the rights to produce Americanised versions of the most popular of Asian movies.

The first real transition (although America has been borrowing elements from Asian moves for decades, even before Kursosawa’s movies) was Ringu, called The Ring in the West. With the Sequel and Prequel in production, the next movies on the list including Kairo (Ring type movie, but quite different and a wonderful head fuck), Infernal Affairs (being produced by Brad Pitt’s company), and this, My Wife is a Gangster. There’s a slew of other Asian flicks in line for the American treatment (Miramax themselves have bought approximately 15 Asian movie licenses).

So what makes My Wife is A Gangster such an interesting movie? Why would they pick this? If Miramax get things right, the right cast, the right transition from Korean home life to a realistic and plausible American environment it could work well. But I think they’ll change it way too much and screw it up as they did The Ring. Anyway, I digress.

My Wife is A Gangster is as the title says; a movie about a hubby who’s wife is a gangster. During the movie, said wife is not yet a wife. Having proved her skills in combat, and been accepted as second to the main boss in her particular gang, Eu-Jin (the character’s name) is well respected and honoured among her underdogs.

The sound is interesting as there is astereo feature, but occasionally you may find the sound dipping in and out as my friend discovered

She is a simple person, she can read, she can write, she can fight, she can drink. She has no clue about men, what they want, and how they think. She has no idea of the notion of sex, and what it takes. She has no clue about how marriages work, and what respect for others means. She’s a cold hearted, almost stupid, individual who shows some sign of intelligent life. This makes her character endearing, perhaps not in writing, but during watching the movie, you understand and almost cry in disbelief as anything that comes out of her mouth is absolutely absurd in front of normal people. Pity the girl, she’s simple, but she can break your legs in two.

Having had her underdogs locate her long lost sister, she receives bad news only having just met her for a little while. She’s dying, what of they dont’ explain, but you get the feeling it’s something like terminal cancer – though they never explain what it is. Strange that, perhaps it makes it easier writing it. If you don’t know what she’s dying of, you can’t say whether it’s realistic that she dies sooner or later.

In any case, during the movie, Eu-Jin’’s sister, Yu-Jin (yes I got confused at times) makes dying pleas for her sister to be happy. The first request is marriage, the second request is having a baby, the third request that she be happy. None of this is done all at once, the movie would be quite short if it took place that way.

So we watch as Eu -Jin struggles to find a husband to be, hiring and threatening old people to pretend to be her parents, threatening a dating agency rep to find her a hubby, hiring a slut to teach her how to get guys horny. It’s quite hilarious in the context. The husband…he just didn’t know what he was getting into. To quote Mr. T “I pity da dam fool!”. Yes, you will pity his simple one track mind.

For 98 minutes we get some good drama, some kick ass action scenes, some memorable comedy too. But for the most part this movie is a drama, if you want 20 minute fist fights, you wont’‘find it here. The fights are sporadic, but incredibly well choreographed.

There are too many hilarious scenes in this movie. At times I was crying with laughter, my ribs hurting as each scene of stupidity takes place. One section of note was when bunch of punks attack Eu-Jin’s underdog’s underdog who is introduced at the beginning of the movie. Anyway, during the next few minutes, he gets into a fight with a bunch of punks he met earlier.

They attack him, and bleeding away, he warns them that the more they beat him, the more clothing he would take off, eventually he would kick their asses naked. He does so….thankfully only down to his Y-fronts. A crowd gathers, watching as this punk is beating up a disgustingly scantily clad man , who is in turn chasing the punk down the street in nothing but his socks and Y-fronts. In embarrassment at what he’s unleashed the punk begs for forgiveness and mercy for the guy not to take his Y-fronts off. It’s scene that has to be seen to be believed – not sure how it’d work in an American translation, but we shall see…

This isn’t a heavy movie, there’s many things going on with lots of stories that eventually interlink towards the end, so as not to leave you confused, but it’s all rather simple. There are some quite brutal moments, so if you’re sensitive to women being beaten in movies then don’t watch this, as you don’t see mercy from the guys (for incredible comic brutality watch Ichi the Killer).

The story is pretty cohesive, the characters portrayed by the actors are enjoyable and serve their purpose well. Even the head honcho of the rival gang called White Shark, camps up the bad guy persona subtly but effectively.

Fight scenes, even though there are few, are exceptionally good. The opening scene will be quite difficult to beat for the American translation, they’ll probably replace the martial arts with gun toting But it’s a superbly poetic action scene set in dark environment with rain. Great stuff.

So what’s all this special DVD business? Well the movie comes on 2 DVDs. The first having the movie in various flavours, subs, no subs, DTS, Dolby 5.1. It also lets you watch the original trailers.

My Wife is a Gangster was another prominent movie in showing that Korea could compete with the other Asian markets

The second DVD has more interesting special features, and only worth looking at for interest or for enthusiasts (like myself) who just need to complete their collection. You get the making of the movie, including how they put the fights scenes together, how they organised the comic scenes, why they chose the tattoos they did, press conferences, photo shoots and so on.

It’s quite a full DVD. In addition to all that, you all get a behind the scenes of the movie, deleted scenes that didn’t’ make it into the final picture as well as interviews with the main cast and crew, which is sadly all in Korean with no subs. You also get cast and crew profiles, again in Korean only, as DVD specials go, this is pretty feature packed stuff for not a lot of money.

The picture is excellent throughout, the sound is interesting as there is astereo feature, but occasionally you may find the sound dipping in and out as my friend discovered. If you have a 5.1 setup, you won’t notice this, and even if you don’t it’s negligible. The subs could have been better done, there several noticeable spelling and grammatical mistakes, however these aren’t too distracting, and don’t ruin the feeling of the movie.

Overall then, this is one excellent, fun packed movie. Drama, action, comedy all in 98 minutes. I do wish they made it longer, but then it wouldn’t have worked so well.

The director went on to make some further excellent movies, including Attack the Gas Station and My Boss My Hero. Continuing and improving his eye for intelligent comedy, mixed with action and story telling.

Verdict: Thoroughly enjoyable action comedy romp.