Review of The Man from Nowhere (2010) by Shaun B — 07 Mar 2013

The Pawnshop Ghost.

The mysterious dark hero who kills without flinching and has unbelievable and inexplainable skills is a character that has been portrayed in cinema for decades. This character can be like the Batman, exceeding our limits for amazement or as cheesy as a b-flick villain twirling his mustache. The character always works best when he has nothing to lose, or is willing to lose it all, thus surprising the bad guys by taking things one step further than they thought he would go. He never says much, letting his actions speak for him. He is more terrifying then the villains, you know this because they panic and scream when they realize they can't stop him. The Man from Nowhere has the perfect silent brooding, unstoppable, villain scaring hero.

This stories dark knight is Cha Tae-sik, played by Won Bin, who owns a rundown pawnshop attached to his apartment. Next door to him lives a little girl named So-mi, played by Kim Sae-ron, and her junkie mother. While Tae-sik tries to keep her at arms length it is clear he has a soft spot for her and tries to help her from time to time. It is also clear that Tae-sik has a troubled past he is trying to deal with, but don't all dark heros have that? So-mi's mother runs afoul with drug dealers and this brings the mob to Tae-sik's door. So-mi and her mother are held hostage over missing drugs and Tae-sik tries to get them home safely by agreeing to run a delivery for her captors, a pair of sociopathic brothers. The brothers Man-seok, played by Kim Hee-won, and Jong-seok, played by Kim Sung-oh, are really a pair of vile criminals who deal not just in drugs but organ harvesting. They are trying to pull off a power shift in the criminal underworld which would wipe out their former boss. They trick Tae-sik into taking a fall for them by promising they will release So-mi and her mother. The story then centers on Tae-sik trying to find So-mi, get revenge on the criminals and avoid the police, who are tearing the city apart looking for him.

I saw in other reviews that this film was compared to movies like The Professional and Taken. I have never seen Taken but I have seen The Professional, and I can agree with that comparison. I would also add that it has many things in common with The Bourne Identity trilogy. It has some very fast paced and very realistic looking action scenes that make you jerk involuntarily. These scenes are very reminiscent of that trilogy, especially a bathroom fight scene between our hero and a hired hand of the criminal brothers. A Thai actor named Thanayong Wongtrakul plays this hired goon named Ramrowan, who proves to have his own personal honor and engages our hero in a intensely choreographed knife fight that moves faster than you can bite your knuckles.

The Man from Nowhere pulls no punches. The violence is bone-breaking, this is not a kung-fu movie with stunts like circus acts. This is blood, grit and gore. The crimes are real and involve the most innocent of victims with the most vile criminals, who are not glorified as cool mobsters. There are many plot tricks as well that will catch you by surprise, and while not always super cleaver, still very well done. The movie also pulls no punches with emotions either. Tae-sik's past is not an overblown comic book pain that drives him to seek solitude, but a real heart breaker. Also, the film lacks the disturbing sexual undertones that The Professional had and instead focuses on a relationship between a broken man and little girl without hope who desperately needs a friend. Thus, they both really need each other. The visceral experience of the film can be summed up in a line delivered by Tae-sik to the older criminal brother, Man-seok. "Those who live for tomorrow get fucked by those that live for today.".