The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil

The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil is not an imaginative film title, but at least we have a pretty good idea what the film is about. Detective Jung Tae-seok is a tough, cynical cop who has a personal vendetta again powerful gangster Jang Dong-soo. He puts 2 and 2 together when investigating a random killing of guy found stabbed to death in the back of his car. He decides this murder has a similar M.O. to a couple of older crimes in other towns and decides there is a serial murderer to be caught. His wild theory is not taken seriously, even when Jang Dong-soo is attacked when driving home one night. The gangster fights back and survives the attack, thinking he'd been attacked by a hitman sent by a rival starts a gang war and also sends his men out to look for the assassin. The cop notices that both cars had been hit from behind by a white car and realises that Jang Dong-soo is the only person to have seen the serial murderer's face. Eventually, the erstwhile enemies join forces to hunt down the killer who has become more reckless, killing more frequently and not changing location like he used to.

The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil is a stylish South Korean action crime thriller. The cops are unkept, the police station dingy and crowded, while the gangsters are stylish, impeccably dressed and vicious. While the presentation is stylish, the scenario and plot are as original as the title. It is best to go along for the ride rather than look for novelty or a deeper message. But this is no different from many Hollywood films that do well at the box office. The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil stands up well alongside those films.

I think that the downfall in The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil is the serial killer - "the Devil". Surely the idea of the uber-villain should be confined to cinematic and TV history. The idea that a single man (and it is almost always a man) who can out-think and outmanoeuvre the cops, often depicted as planning things years in advance, setting up elaborate one-off schemes and having limitless resources as his disposal yet having a secret room where he pins pictures of his victims and future victims to the wall along with newspaper clippings and decorated with his primitive art that lays bare his inner thoughts and as a shrine to his evil crimes is completely ridiculous. The serial killer in The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil is a ruthless, knife obsessed loner, whose main defence is his anonymity and that his kills have been in different police districts, with long gaps in time between them. Once he starts to kill more frequently and staying in the same area, he should have ceased to be the formidable opponent he was built up to be.

The best scene is a throwaway scene where we are shown a potential female victim only to have our expectations amusingly upended in a unique insight into the idea that one of the protagonists may have a life outside work.

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Ian rating 3/5