I found this quite fantastic and perfect entertainment for a Saturday night. Park So-dam is wonderful, with snappy pizzazz, great stuntwork, vulnerability bubbling under the surface and an effortless cool and swagger, certainly aided by how good bomber jackets look on her. I kid you not.
Then there's a bunch of enjoyable side characters some of which add heart and others imposing threats, a run time that is listed here as 109 minutes, but believe me, a good chunk of…
A rewatch confirms that this one would be a tad more enjoyable if the grim violence bits were a little less grim and violent, but the steady pacing and Ma Dong-seok make it a good time anyway. Wonder when we'll be able to watch the sequel, which is hitting, no bitch-slapping South Korean cinemas this month, internationally!
Should have at least set the end credits to CoB's "Lake Bodom". Missed opportunity right there!
Whenever a scene was set in the dark I also screamed "BODOM! AFTER MIDNIGHT!" at the TV, so another missed opportunity there.
15 year old me would love these jokes. RIP Alexi Laiho. Decent slasher with good lighting.
Til Schweiger is solid, Jan Josef Liefers didn't drink the Q Kool-Aid yet and there's two grandiose cameos, from Hannes Jaenicke and Rutger Hauer respectively and it all makes for an occasionally funny, but for the most part just about decently entertaining crime comedy drama hybrid.
But then there's Moritz Bleibtreu's super cringy attempt at a "Turkish gangster" accent, that caused some extreme "Fremdschämen" for this particular German watching and hearing it. If only there were capable German-Turkish actors in…
Gets a raise for its craftsmanship on the first rewatch since seeing it in cinemas, but the plot and writing really are shockingly generic for this kind of film.
It did help to not watch it in a cinema with people (always correctly!) predicting the next line though, so there's that.
It's been many years since I last watched the first film, but according to the corresponding LB rating I enjoyed this sequel a tad more. Which is somewhat weird, as this felt like treading the same ground and only very marginally changing things up, thus certainly sticking to its figurative and literal guns.
Anyways, enjoyable and solid entertainment for a Sunday evening.
An ode to Hamburg and just an entertaining and pleasant film that follows an enjoyable group of characters. Got the half a star raise I first contemplated, after I watched the next film which was pretty shite, to bring the universe back into balance.
It's pretty plain, but a spirited and likeable cast make it more enjoyable than a by the numbers comedy like this should be. Totally alright is what I say.
The Mystery with these Men is why this doesn't amount to decent entertainment, but two hours of boredom instead.
Seriously, interesting cast, great production design and a high budget for 1999. Myzzztery Men, more like.