Remember the 2009 movie Taken? It’s about Liam Neeson using his skills as a CIA agent to try and rescue his kidnapped teenage daughter. Before the action starts, a lot of time is devoted to showing their father/daughter relationship, which is a bit cheesy and predictable. A weak emotional undercurrent took away from an otherwise great movie, but its grittiness and Neeson’s performance are what make Taken a must-see.
The Man from Nowhere is a 2010 South Korean movie with a similar premise, but it does a terrific job of feeling real and relatable. The movie stars Won Bin as a man with an indeterminate past whose only connection to the real world, a young girl frequently in hiding from her drug-addicted mother, gets tangled up in an underground child slavery ring and worse.
It’s got just about everything I love: pyrrhic victories, self-redemption, revenge, stylized violence, and unflinching melodrama; The Man from Nowhere is a no holds barred thriller which doesn’t pull any of its punches. The film includes a balance of both gun violence and hand-to-hand combat that is more visceral than cool. It all lends itself to an extremely exciting action movie, the likes of which I haven’t seen in quite some time.
The Man from Nowhere is available on Blu-ray, DVD and Netflix, and is also streaming on Amazon. Trailer available here.
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Odd to see your comments on this movie today as I just watched it last night.
Although most of the film’s elements are familiar, it delivers each of them with an unflinching intensity. The mental, emotional and physical violence really pack some power. I winced a lot.
It’s very well made, well shot, well acted, and features many scenes of action that manage to combine the expected one-man-martial-arts-army stuff with a savagely brutal realism that makes it all seem much more believable than it usually is on screen. The Man from Nowhere also features what is probably the greatest knife fight ever filmed.
Geez, what do I watch next? That’s a tough act to follow.
That’s a good question. I agree on all points, and while I’ve seen many other solid SK films, none quite capture the impact and intensity that this one does. If you’re looking for an action movie that is just as thoughtful with strong performances, I can recommend A Dirty Carnival. It’s not as frenetic as this movie, but I enjoyed it very much all the same. It’s underlined with the same sort of honest brutality.