THE DRUG KING is another crowd-pleasing South Korean thriller, made with plenty of scope, an expansive background (both geographically and politically) and some fine acting from the leads. The 1970s setting allows for a great soundtrack and outlandish fashions. It's very similar in tone to the Donnie Yen film CHASING THE DRAGON and very bit as good. The excellent Song Kang-ho delivers another multi-layered turn as the man who works his way up from the very bottom to the very top, his desire for money the only thing that continues to drive him forward. There's even a role for the suitably expressive Doona Bae. The film is typically Korean in that it mixes comedic moments (the riff on the climax of SCARFACE is a particular delight) with bursts of extreme violence and melodrama, and the end result is the kind of film Scorsese made in his heyday.
Review of The Drug King
