Fridae

The Man From Nowhere seems to be chiefly inspired by Man On Fire, a twice-filmed (most notably by Tony Scott with Denzel Washington in the lead) novel by A J Quinnell about a bodyguard named John Creasy who goes on a roaring rampage of revenge when he believes the little girl he protects to be dead at the hands of the mob. And it makes no bones about its airport read roots. Dirty, pulpy and flashy, The Man From Nowhere is simply all about beating Hollywood at its own game.

Won Bin, fresh off the success of Mother, plays mystery man Cha Tae Shik, who owns a pawnshop below an apartment where young girl So-Mi (Kim Sae Ron) stays with her mother Hyo-Jeong (Hyo-Seo Kim), an “exotic dancer” in a club. When her mother aids her boyfriend/pimp on a drug transaction gone wrong and grabs a whole bunch of the white stuff for herself, So-Mi and her mother find themselves neck-deep with the mob - in particular two nasty brothers who ply the human organ black market trade. Cha, however, is quick to react to these baddies, for his dark past has equipped him with formidable skills in hand-to-hand, armed combat and interrogation that will turn him once again into a killing machine of vengeance.

Those who have seen the American version of Man On Fire will find this movie covering plenty of familiar terrain from the several redemptive moments the antihero has with the kid right before her kidnapping to having the law enforcement serve as a Greek chorus on the action and the main character, and several nasty interrogation/torture/murder sequences all performed by its antihero. It’s proof that really, there are few original stories under the sun and it’s the all about the journey rather than the stops. This is a shorter, faster and more populist version of the same journey, mixing the Korean tendency towards ultraviolence, sentimentality and melodrama in equal measures. It’s nowhere as deep, but it’s as deep as a pulpy film about redemption and revenge should just be, and makes up for it with a few breathtaking footchases, gunfights and a knifefight. All of these action sequences are clearly composited and beautifully edited with exquisite attention to space in sharp contrast to many recent Hollywood films, and provide some high-quality thrills.

The Man From Nowhere obviously is inspired by the likes of Tony Scott, Michael Bay and Simon West, and doesn’t really aim higher than most of them. A well made genre picture, it delivers all the thrills on a fraction of the budget.