Friend

Third Window Films

R2 DVD

Clear English subtitles

Friend is a Korean tale of four boys who grew up in a country village together, and how their lives kept coming into contact with each other as they moved into adulthood.

Jung-Sook is the tough one in the group. His father is a minor gangster who doesn’t seem to have much time for his son, so Jung-Sook finds acceptance with his three friends. Sometimes he has to use his talent for violence to look after his friends when they get into trouble. Dong-Su’s father is the village undertaker, a job held in low esteem. Dong-Su feels inferior because of this but it doesn’t seem to worry his friends. He relies on Jung-Sook for leadership and becomes his main ally in the battles that occasionally break out.

Joong-Ho is the class clown who will probably become a waste of space as he grows up. Sang-Taek is the studious one who always achieves high grades but is quite naïve about the real world outside school. He is shy and has no experience of women for many years other than pictures he has seen in Playboy magazine.

As they leave college and go their own ways the story concentrates on the relationship between Jung-Sook (who has joined a gang and seems set for a life of violent crime) and Dong-Su (who joins a rival gang in a search for respect and a chance to make his own way in life instead of being always second to Joong-Ho).

The four friends keep in touch but are horrified one year to find that Jung-Sook is heavily into drugs. His work and his marriage are under great strain and it is only Dong-Su’s support that keeps him going. His Boss warns him to pull himself together (there is an implied “or else” in there) and surprisingly he does. He then rises quickly in the ranks of his gang, and Dong-Su with his education is rising quickly in his gang.

The police are cracking down on the gangs. Most of the Bosses are now in prison and the young men running the gangs are supposed to keep things going while their Bosses serve out their sentences. In both gangs, though, the young ones have taken over. Both men believe they should support their Bosses – loyalty means a lot – but soon a bigger crisis than internal politics surfaces. Gang warfare starts to break out as the rival gangs fight for areas of influence like lucrative building contracts. Dong-Su is ordered to kill Joong-Ho.

Dong-Su must now decide between loyalty to his friend, his new gang Boss, or the old gang Boss who is still in prison. Loyalty to your Boss is a theme that runs through many Korean crime films. It often conflicts with other loyalties such as to friends and family and the results are usually tragic.

The film is well made and well acted and is an excellent example of this rising genre.

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