In short: The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil (2019)

Original title: 악인전

After a fender bender ends up with the driver of the car that had been bumped into being knifed to death rather enthusiastically by the other party, cop Jeong Tae-seok (Kim Mu-yeol) actually takes time out from uselessly harassing gangster boss Jang Dong-soo (Ma Dong-seok) and develops the theory that the killer is a serial killer whose modus operandi makes it difficult to identify him as such- Apparently, there are really a lot of knife murders in Korean traffic. His boss, with whom he is basically at war because of his private feud against Dong-soo (who happens to be said boss’s other employer, too, so we can’t quite hold this against Tae-seok) does not buy it, particularly not in the typically rude and assholish way Tae-seok is trying to sell it. Obviously, he’s going to keep working the case anyway.

As luck will have it, Jang Dong-soo is the killer’s next prospective victim; he’s just too good at fighting and taking damage to get killed. At first, the gangster interprets the attack as part of an emerging gang war with an old buddy of his, but eventually, he and Tae-seok will team up to get the killer, all the while trying to use and trick each other for their own separate ends.

Lee Won-tae’s thriller mostly lives on style and the abilities of his actors to sell the convoluted plot as theatre of big manly emotions. At the same time, the film is not shying away from portraying its non-serial killing leads as deeply unpleasant and horrible people, in the good tradition of South Korean cinema to never portray a police officer or a gangster completely positively. Though, for once, our main cop is somewhat competent, at least when he gets off his ass to do something a bit more advanced than punching people. We do get enough of the punching, too, obviously – and of course also of Ma Dong-seok using his physicality rather impressively.

The film isn’t too bad at mixing the clichés and tropes of the cop and gangster love/hate fest and that of the serial killer thriller quite productively, making some of it curiously surprising via the remixing of tropes despite lacking all surface originality.

So there’s a lot of very stylishly staged genre fun to have here, with big performances, big drama and big violence. Well, until the final twenty minutes or so arrive, when the film’s going for a really overcooked final plot twist, all the while shouting how awesome capital punishment for the mentally ill is. Which is not a great look for The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil to go out on, if you ask me.