A Dirty Carnival

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre foreign Starring Gweon Tae-weon, Jo In-Seong, Cheon Ho-jin, Park Hyo-jun, Jin Gu Directed by Yu Ha Publisher CJ Entertainment

Gangster movies have mostly been a trademark of American cinema, glimpsing into the Italian mafia. From The Godfather to Goodfellas, the culture of Italian immigrants was portrayed down to the minute details, from the importance of family to Mama’s homemade tomato sauce. A Dirty Carnival puts an Eastern twist on the gangster formula, providing a new vision of the genre along with the familiar elements we expect.

The story revolves around Byung-Doo, brilliantly portrayed by Zo In-Sung. In order to make enough money to support his starving mother and sister, Byung-Doo resorts to climbing the ranks of a ruthless mob. His job puts a strain on his personal life, leaving him detached from his friends, family, and love life. He isn’t in the business for the love of being a gangster, but merely because he doesn’t have a choice. In-Sung’s performance is riveting and complex enough to make the viewer feel sympathy for a killer. A glance into his eyes reveals a hardened heart waiting to break free.

Just as Byung-Doo is ready to give up his life of crime, the plot thickens as his childhood friend Min-Ho (Namkoong Min) directs a feature movie based upon gangster life. The film is too identical to real life, giving members of rival gangs incentive to track down and kill Byung-Doo. The friendship and feelings of betrayal between Byung-Doo and Min-Ho are completely genuine, as no malice was originally intended to happen. What makes the characters work in this film is that there is a motive for everything they do, making it worth the time to stick around and see what happens.

Korean culture and philosophy are explored to add depth to everything, including characters and environment. Their definition of a family, a group of people who eat at the same table, influence the importance of why the gangsters must be there for each other. For fun, they like to sing at karaoke bars, which is used as a clever motif for characters to send messages to each other through the subtext in their singing.

Plenty of homages are given to American gangster flicks, including a brutal 1950’s style rumble involving only aluminum bats and knives. The overall grittiness is even explored as Min-Ho explains that he wants his gangster movie to be less “ stylized kung-fu” and more “beat to a bloody pulp.” A Dirty Carnival director Yoo Ha certainly did his homework, and he has the results to prove it.

Despite great performances and attention to detail, this film isn’t perfect. At times, the story lines become quite convoluted. Because each of the gangs have ranks, there are many leaders who are the bosses of different people, and even they have bosses of their own. I needed a map to be able to sort it all out. It’s nice to see ambition and love for characters, but a hint of simplicity would be a nice effort to make the film easier to understand.

Composer Cho Young-Wuk also had difficulty deciding what type of music to use to create the tone. During scenes involving family, overtones of an accordion would set a European tone, while the brawls were played out with inappropriate 1980’s thriller music that works better in Escape From New York. For such a well-made film, the bipolar music was aggravating and threatens to ruin some moments that are otherwise spectacular.

Despite a few poor aesthetic choices, A Dirty Carnival is full of great performances, unforeseen twists, and realistic characters. This film is sure to please fans of both gangster and Eastern cinema alike, and it may be enough to even spark the curiosity of the casual moviegoer.