Movie

A Bittersweet Life

2005 · 119 min

A stylish, brooding crime drama that blends brutal action with a quiet, tragic loneliness.

Tagline: When doing right goes very, very wrong.
Overview: Kim Sun-woo is an enforcer and manager for a hotel owned by a cold, calculative crime boss, Kang who assigns Sun-woo to a simple errand while he is away on a business trip; to shadow his young mistress, Hee-soo, for fear that she may be cheating on him with a younger man with the mandate that he must kill them both if he discovers their affair.

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How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone: melancholicstrength 3 of 3
darkstrength 2 of 3
tensestrength 2 of 3
romanticstrength 1 of 3
Pacing: measured, 2 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention: engaged, 3 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes: loyalty
betrayal
revenge
isolation
redemption
Places: big city
workplace
Era: contemporary
Audience: adult
Form: twist ending
Content intensity: Gore strong
Language mild
Violence strong
Sex mild

All scales, 0 to 10

Scales, 0 to 10
Scale	Value	0 to 10
Action	7
Horror	3
Humour	2
Realism	6
Romance	3
Tension	7
Darkness	7
Complexity	6
Emotional weight	7

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Where to watch in the UK

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BFI Player Amazon Channel
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Streaming data from JustWatch.All options on TMDB

Details

Genres: action, drama, crime
Directed by: Kim Jee-woon
Written by: Kim Jee-woon
Starring: Lee Byung-hun, Kim Yeong-cheol, Shin Min-a, Kim Roi-ha, Lee Ki-young, Hwang Jung-min, Eric Mun, Oh Dal-su
Music: Dalpalan, Jang Young-gyu
Cinematography: Kim Ji-yong
Runtime: 119 min
Country: South Korea
Languages: Korean, Russian

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A Bittersweet Life

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Where to watch in the UK

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