Review of The Man from Nowhere (2010) by Ant G — 30 Jul 2011

If you want Bourne Identity but involves human trafficking, child abuse, body part trafficking, revenge, great bad guys, lots of blood and a slow realisation of the main character's background.. this movie is for you.

If you liked OldBoy, this movie has similarly uncomfortable fight scenes, especially the second boss offing. It's basically a revenge / vengeance movie but I would say it asks the viewer to consider more the actual happenings of child abuse / body parts and the culture of the country rather than the outlandish plot.

It follows a story of a guy who turns out to be an ex-special forces assassin. A young girl befriends him and they become friends of sorts. We explore the protagonist's background and why he is, as he is. The young girl gets taken by mafia who are primarily into body part smuggling and who are moving into the chinese drug trade. We have a policeman who is following the chinese and korean gangs. He stumbles across a guy who comes in from no-where who seems to be offing all the bad guys. The protagonist has to evade the law and the mafia to get back the girl, his only friend.

Whereas Sympathy for Mrs Vengeance is cleverly constructed this movie is more Hollywood in it's delivery with a rather daft and unbelievable 2 minutes to the end film ending. All the characters play good parts. There's some great bad guys and the story is well played out. There's a lot of violence and torture, with great fight scenes that are more Bourne Identity and thankfully no wire-frame moves.

I'd rate this a LOT LOT higher than any of Woo's flicks, but the trouble is the cute young girl part and the ending which is the feelgood factor. I would say, a movie that involves the amount of torture and darkness ought to never be given a feel good factor. It ought to make the politics of the movie felt. This is done with movies such as OldBoy.