No Blood No Tears offers a story which is a mix of City of Fire (honour amongst thieves), Thelma & Louise (the female compatriotship), and the double cross, tripple crossing twisty thing that most gangster and mob films have (in this context, something like Bound). It has melodrama in plenty, which does make the film drag quite often.

The best of the film is one third into the film, when the swindling and back stabbing takes place. The fights are both fast and furious, but at the same time directed in such a way that it’s only impressive at certain points – everything else is cut and chopped up into a blur. Nine out of ten times you may not actually be able to tell what is going on during a fight scene, with regards to who’s hitting who. The same is true of the car chase scenes, which again look confusing and messy.

Bulldog (Jeong Jae-Yeong) is a gangster who manages dog fights, and is a severe woman beater. His girlfriend, Soo-jin (Jeon Do-Yeon) is the available punchbag that he uses on a regular basis; partciularly when he’s drunk and jealous. Pissed off with his constant abuse towards her, she decides to plan to steal his money from him. By chance, she crashes into Kyeong-Seon (Lee Hye-Yeong) who’s having her own problems dealing with the loan sharks who continually force money from her, for her husbands transgression. She can’t afford it, she can’t see her daughter, and her husband is in hiding – yet she won’t give him up. All this, even though she is beaten and works as a taxi driver which is about as rewarding as having a knife poked in your eye.

The two concot a plan to steal the money, but things don’t go according to plan, and it seems everyone is afer the money, from Bulldog’s own boss, to Bulldog himself, to his girlfriend, and three kids who are squeezed into the plot through police surveillance – the cops are of course after Bulldog as well as the money. The plot is rather chaotic, not always making sense, and never quite hitting the level of logic required to make it convincing.

The best of the film is one third into the film, when the swindling and back stabbing takes place

The film is not gentle on women as they give as good as they get, and when they get, they receive a severe pummeling. One thing I don’t appreciate about Western films is this need to be gentle to women, as if they’re helpess and always victims. Women are purposely never exposed to the extremities of realistic violence, which is quite disappointing. Here, there are no limits, there is no special treatment based on your gender. Guys beat women, and women beat guys.

It’s fair to say there are some interesting comparisons with Silver’s Bound. There are two women, one does work for the mob, while one is the rather butch of the two. There is no lesbian undercurrent here though, and it contains neither the complexity of the plot or the panache of the lo-fi Hollywood piece. It’s not as entertaining either, and looks very troubled at times. The story seems to stretch rather than fit, trying to find different ways to incorporate as many characters as possible. It’s a bowl that doesn’t seem very appetising, and could form some nasty digestive problems.

Unlike Ryoo Seung-Wan’s previous effort, Die Bad, or the his follow up piece, Arahan, No Blood No Tears tries to emulate rather than innovate. There is a distinct Korean flavour to the film (the role of strong, intelligent women) but it still lacks an edge to make it fully satisfying. The acting is pretty good, but the lack of depth to each indivdual and the tired script tends to make proceedings incredibly unbalanced and lacking any real cohesive structure. Quite disappointing overall.

Verdict: A pale imitation of Hollywood ideas made worse; not one for your DVD list of must-have’s.