Nameless Gangster

2012 "Power Cannot Be Taken Alone."
7| 2h13m| en
Details

A corrupt customs official joins forces with a vicious gangster to form the most powerful crime partnership in Busan.

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

Stream on any device, 30-day free trial Watch Now

Trailers & Clips

Reviews

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.
Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.
ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
grandmastersik In a structural mess of a story, the film starts near the end and then skips back and forth to tell the rise and fall of a sycophantic hustler who makes a name for himself in the world of organised crime by playing gangster.With an overly long running time, the film could have been shorter, but then, considering how the backbone of the story is the lead's connections and how he exploits them all to his own advantage, it's difficult to pinpoint just what should have been cut, as the lead's snivelling demeanour becomes a swagger and then hubris, before his total lack of understanding the mentality of all those he's involved with leads to his downfall. He then reverts back to his snivelling old self, blames everybody else for his mistakes, relies on connections and walks off into the sunset.Moral of the story? Kiss arse and you'll live a long and prosperous life.And that's the problem with the whole film: there's not a single likable character. And while the film certainly doesn't glorify anything, I honestly couldn't have cared what happened to anyone in it, and found myself restlessly checking how much of the film was left every 5 or 10 minutes."Nameless", though, is at least adequate, because after the credits roll, you'll quickly forget about it.
TheGipsy This one is my first review, the only reason is that there is not much attention on this movie.Namless Gangster, as usual, Min-sik Choi is filled with passion, and your acceptance to his personality in this movies isn't any different from Oldboy, and I Saw The Devil, you can't just stop love to despise him and still, feel sorry for him, this is a hell of a role and he just took it to the maximum, loved every second of it.Jung-woo Ha, on the other hand, nailed it for me, the progress and development of this character through the movie is simply amazing, I always admired this guy, and after this one he just made it so clear, that he can just be as catchy as any other superstar actor in the universe, with his "Gangster" mood, this was simply incredible.The movie, is a Korean Gangster flick as you guys call it here, still I find it underrated, but maybe due to the fact that it is considered a new movie and still needs time, the atmosphere, the progress, the conflicts in interest, and the personal feelings, they all come in a way that will keep you through a roller-coaster of emotions! Loved it and I recommend this one!
KineticSeoul There is quite a bit of similar aspects to this movie to "Goodfellas" except "Goodfellas" is a way better movie. This just has constant cursing and random beatings thrown in to the point it loses it's flare and quickly becomes formulaic and repetitive. Now Min-sik Choi is a good actor but he has been playing these similar character type roles for a while. Who is the epitome of a blood sucking leech that manipulates and use people for his own benefit. Now the real world maybe like this as well but his character Choi Ik-Hyun takes it to a whole another level. There is elements to the gangster world that keeps it interesting, like certain codes and hierarchy. But Choi Ik-Hyun is not a gangster but a wannabe gangster and he is very far from being a law abiding citizen. A guy that tries to weasel his way out of anything. Everything about this character is dis-likable so there is a high chance no audience member will have any sympathy for this character. Except that he is sort of a family person. Now the second main character is Choi Hyung-Bae(Ha Jung-Woo) who is a gangster and does have gangster codes. But he isn't really likable gangster either or all that cool per say. He does have charisma but lacks the likable gangster aspect but I guess that is so it can go in a more realistic direction. And for the most part this movie is realistic but it's jumbled with random curse words and beatings that isn't effective nor does it entertain all that much. Their is isn't a single likable character in this movie you can side with. And the ending makes the movie even worse, maybe the director wanted to show elements of the real world. But it just gives off crappy morals and ethics, well there is none in this movie. Overall it's a alright movie that tries to show how some people do business in the underworld of Busan during the 80's. But everything just seemed a bit formulaic and it just didn't have enough scenes that makes this movie memorable or stand out.6.8/10
kluseba As a big fan of current Korean cinema and even more of the amazing actor Choi Min Sik as well as of Mafia and Yakuza movies in general, I was really looking forward to watch this movie. But in the end it all came very different...The only positive thing about the movie is the unique acting of Choi Min Sik. He proves that he doesn't only perfectly incarnates twisted and brutal characters but also the one he plays in here. We talk about a corrupt customs official who works at the port of Busan who finds a haul of drugs and begins to team up with a vicious gangster. The character doesn't seem to be clever at all at first sight. He has no experiences whatsoever, is overtly arrogant and doesn't stop talking nonsense. But thanks to a lot of luck as well as to a couple of good deals and relations, he survives by using his partner, his enemies and even the police for his own issues. Choi Min Sik incarnates the character with a lot of humour. On the other side, it's quite hard to believe that this kind of clumsy character has gone so far in organized crime and the movie overall doesn't feel realistic enough.The movie itself is a biopic with many lengths and a load of more or less important characters. We assist to many meetings at many different places with many different people that are sometimes redundant and add nothing to the story line. Apart of following the career of the main character, there is no truly addicting story that would create an acceptable setting. The dialogues are sometimes quite poor, there is not much tension in the movie and the few action scenes are good but quite rare to find. This movie never gets close to all those big movies about organized crimes such as The Godfather, Once Upon A Time In America, Takashi Miike's Family and so on.In the end, this movie may only be worth a watch for fans of Choi Min Sik who makes this overlong biopic at least watchable. On the other side, he can't save this film from its numerous flaws and lengths. The expectations for this film were quite high but the final result is more than disappointing.