No Blood, No Tears (2002) User Reviews

3 stars (out of 4)

[mweston · 7/10 · 11 January 2003]

Dok-bul is a gangster who runs dog fights. He abuses his girlfriend, Su-ji, and so she decides to steal a bag full of money from him. She gets the help of Kyeong-seon (Hye-yeong Lee), a taxi driver who used to be a safe cracker and has been trying to go straight. The other significant character is Kim Geum-bok, who is generally referred to as "KGB."

While the plot has been compared to "Bound," with the two women leads ganging up on the boyfriend, this film is far less coherent than that film. Basically, everyone is after the money, and the film revolves around a number of very well done Hong Kong-style fight scenes, complete with slow motion with water and/or dirt in the air, wire work, and some swirling camera moves. If you can forgive the simplistic story, these scenes plus the performance of Hye-yeong Lee make the film worth seeing.

Seen on 11/6/2002 at the 2002 Hawaii International Film Festival.

Lots of Blood, Little Tears

[vvanpo · 5/10 · 14 June 2003]

What this film does have a lot of: blood, cigarette smoke (*cough*), profanity (if you want to learn Korean swear words this is your flick) and double-crossings. All for a bag full of Won.

I prefer to see my fight scenes as if I'm watching a ballet. I want to be able to see the whole stage. "Pido" films its fight scenes as if the viewer was a referee in a boxing match. This frustrated me. Both sexes get equal opportunity pummeling.

Trying to achieve too much with not so great results...

[paul_haakonsen · 5/10 · 11 May 2012]

"No Blood No Tears" was a movie that I was really looking forward to watching. Why? Well because it was a Third Windows Film, and they usually have really good (and often quite remarkable) Asian movies out on the market. Plus "No Blood No Tears" also had Do-yeon Jeon on the cast list (and she was amazing in "The Harmonium in my Memory").

Now having seen this movie, I must admit that I feel somewhat disillusioned, because this movie was nowhere as interesting or exciting as I had hoped. It was like director, Seung-wan Ryoo, wanted to accomplish a lot of things all at once, but didn't fully manage to juggle all the balls he had put up in the air. The movie was trying to tell too many tales at the same time, and it ended up being a rather confusing, stupid and irritating mess of a story. Sure, "No Blood No Tears" had its moments, but in general there was just not enough of a red thread throughout the story to hang on to.

The acting in the movie was actually quite good, and I think that goes for everyone in the movie, because the actors and actresses portrayed their characters quite well and came off as believable characters on the screen.

It was a shame that there was too much going on in the movie at the same time and that the movie was jumping back and forth trying to tie together all the various story lines and characters. It just didn't work out as the director had intended. And that is the reason why I give the movie only a mediocre grade. "No Blood No Tears" could have been a much better movie, had the director not trying to throw so many different elements into one project. Would have been better to focus on a couple of the story lines and tie them together in a more constructed way.

But still, Do-yeon Jeon (playing Su-ji) and Hye-yeong Lee (playing Kyeong-seon) - the two main characters - actually made the movie worth enough to sit through till the end.

Inexcusable

[bluelobster420 · 1/10 · 2 April 2008]

This film does actually have a slice of pretty much all action staples. The problem is that none of them are done well at all. There's no originality or freshness or even energy to many of the things that happen in this film. The car chase for instance has un-fancy, domestic cars (No problem with that) driving at a furious 50 MPH or so (There's our first problem) on a deserted, spacious dock (another problem, where's the sense of danger?), where they drive through barrels of water (Oh, thrilling!).

Get this, our main protagonists are...women! No one's ever done that before, or at least this film seems to think so as it provides us no other reason for the audience to care about them. The model's boyfriend hit her (awww) and the taxi driver's sick of her job (awww), but together, for no real reason they're gonna steal some money and live life to the fullest. Hell yeah.

NBNT even features your favourite been there, done that talking points of recent years: Briefcase you never see inside of, Car crash out of nowhere~! Dog fighting (bound to be controversial and get your movie some attention), A man who says nothing but kicks ass, A gang of goofy friends with big dreams who directly reference other movies, Flashy editing.

This might sounds like it all adds up to a good film, but every aspect is executed horribly to the point where it's hard to care about anything. This could even be forgivable if there was even one likable line or scene or stunt or fight or shot in the entire 114 minutes, but there isn't. At all.

The world would be a better place if half-hearted efforts like this never saw a release.

Chaotic but entertaining pulp noir

[refresh_daemon · 8/10 · 6 July 2008]

No Blood No Tears, the second feature by Corean action auteur, Ryu Seung Wan, isn't so much an action picture, but more of a pulp noir/caper movie like a number of the films of Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino.

The story itself features a rather large cast of characters, but our protagonists are two women, one with an abusive ex-boxer boyfriend turned criminal and the other an ex-con turned taxi-driver who owes some gangsters some money. A somewhat complicated scheme is hatched by multiple parties to steal money from an illegal dog-fighting event and it appears as though multiple gangs are involved, as well as the police, some wannabe criminals. Once the scheme begins, all the parties go for the bag of money and multiple double crosses are revealed, along with fists flying, feet running and a whole lot of people getting beaten up and/or killed. All of which is clear, even if it's a little chaotic at times.

Humor is present in the film, more in the form of irony or just people (or the audience) reacting to the madness that's occurring, but it's not a comedy. The action is stylish and some of the choices in direction, including some crazy tracking over surprisingly long choreographed fight sequences, can be surprising both in effectiveness and audacity. The art direction is also notable, the film being drenched in dark tones, perfectly setting the atmosphere.

I think all thesps do a good job with the increasingly deranged boyfriend being the most surprising of all as his character changes. It's not an easy film to watch due to the heaping of physical non-glorified violence, so those that can't take such images should generally stay away. Also, if you don't pay attention or try to do something else while watching this film, you might lose track of what's going on due to the expansiveness of the cast. And things do get quite chaotic when multiple groups are encountering each other (and also quite amusing as well, in a maddening "can it really get any crazier?" kind of way).

Fans of crime/heist movies with a little grit and humor, like those of the aforementioned directors will find a lot to like here. I personally enjoyed the insanity, the comedy, some kick ass violence, but I did wish it would've relented just a little on some of the pummeling that happened. It sometimes just got brutal to watch such an unfair match-up. But overall, I enjoyed this energized, entertaining, funny sequence of increasingly crazy events. 8/10.

Wow, this action/comedy gangster/heist flick really delivers the goods!

[divemaster13 · 9/10 · 9 February 2010]

Mix several parts "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," a dash of "Go," a smidgen of "True Romance," and fights as brutal as "Fight Club" (but with women giving and taking beatings as much or moreso than the men) -- put it all through the filter of a Korean gangster film and you have "No Blood, No Tears," a tour de force by hot young director Seung-wan Ryoo ("Die Bad"; "Crying Fist").

The plot is complex. But not so that you can't follow what is going on as it happens. Don't plan on being two jumps ahead, however. Just let the movie come to you and you will be rewarded.

The whole issue of the heist and most of the fights (which are pretty brutal) don't really come into play until the second half of the film, but there is plenty of good stuff in the first half to get you there.

The story is centered around two good female leads. Hye-yeong Lee plays Kyeong-seon, who owes the local neighborhood loan shark a lot of money. She's got a certain past and tends to solve problems by a beer bottle across the head or a kick to the gut. Then we have Su-ji (played by Do-yeon Jeon)--the frequently smacked around moll of a low-level gangster. A chance encounter puts them together and gets the wheels turning on how they can make off with a whole lot of the high-level gangster's money.

There are double crosses, triple crosses, and lots of surprises along the way. A multitude of other characters play important roles. Inept police detectives; idiotic street punks who switch back and forth from being informants for the police and trying to get in on the goods themselves; loan collectors who don't know if they should start taking off fingers or sit down and eat lunch with the debtor. Perhaps most impressive is a gangster tough (credited as "Silent Man") played by famed martial arts action director Doo-hong Jung. He has a great fight scene where he really gets to strut his stuff.

If you are tired of the same old Hollywood plots, fights, and chases, do yourself a favor and seek this film out.

A very fun film--$3 very well spent! =)

[talisencrw · 8/10 · 16 January 2016]

'No Blood No Tears' is the only film I've seen so far of Ryoo's (and I had never heard of it; I simply found it for $3 at a department store that was going out of business, thought it looked interesting and decided to take a chance on it). It was a very satisfying blind-buy, a contemporary and Asian spin on the 'Thelma and Louise' motif. The action and comedic touches are surefire, and the irony of who ends up with the loot was compelling. The friendship mix of the two women (older night owl taxi driver who's deadbeat ex-husband owes everybody money and makes her life miserable, and who desperately wants to find her daughter, with the young girlfriend of a ex-boxer hood who likes to beat her to a pulp) who desperately need each other is well-written and portrayed, and there is truly something for everybody in this successful entry in the legion of Quentin Tarantino/Guy Ritchie-inspired films of the past generation...

A personal favorite of the Korean New Wave: Recommended

[katarhol · 8/10 · 28 October 2005]

For a couple of years now, I'd worn down my region 3 DVD copy of "No Blood No Tears" and nearly despaired when the thin plastic at the center of the DVD cracked, making it hard to play. Thankfully a Region 1 DVD edition is now available, and we can all enjoy director Ryu Seong Won's fun, Tarantino-esquire crime caper/action comedy.

In a nutshell, "No Blood No Tears" is about two down-and-out women, who spy a chance to make some quick money, enough to change their dead-end lives, inadvertently setting off a six-sided gang war over the missing funds. The film is also noteworthy for the first on-screen appearance of South Korea's most accomplished action director/martial arts choreographer Jeon Du Hong ("Fighter in the Wind, Arahan") as "The Silent Man", a mob enforcer.

Stylishly shot in browns, reds and inky blacks, "No Blood No Tears" only drawbacks are two chase scenes, one on foot, the other a car chase, that are a bit unconvincing. Otherwise, "No Blood No Tears" is really fun stuff. It's definitely worth a try, if nothing else for the impromptu "cage match" between Jeon's "silent man" and Jeong's "Bulldog" a washed up ex-boxer, one of the best fight scenes I've seen in some time.

Fantastic

[UberDryad · 10/10 · 26 May 2003]

Although at times I found the movie too dark to see what exactly was going on, I thought it was well written and well played.

The cast of characters is wide, but like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, it all makes sense in the end. And it's funny, too. The action scenes are...quite intense, and not being knowledgeable about martial arts beyond 'that's cool!', I was really impressed.

All in all, I recommend it!

See it!

[kemouse · 9/10 · 10 May 2004]

I read about this at Kungfu Cult Cinema and was not disappointed. On the surface it's kind of like "Thelma and Louise" meets "lock, stock and 2 smoking barrels", with some super bad-ass martial arts stuff here and there. Humorous, gritty and stylish, the movie really gets you rooting for the two protagonists, hoping for them to come out on top after being held down so long. It was also reminiscent of "Bound", which is kind of "Thelma and Louise"-ish in it's own right. This was a lot better than that movie(thelma...) to me though. I liked the characters better, anyway I really enjoyed it and I think anyone looking for something cool will like it too.

A stylish action movie with a brain

[Lagomorph · 10/10 · 8 September 2002]

It's an action movie with a brain... there are some amazing fight scenes in it, most of which are really unusual, but all of which are filmed beautifully. When I saw this film at KIMA in Berkeley, the director (Seung-wan Ryoo (Die Bad)) was on hand to comment on the film afterward (he's all of 29 years old, and he was wearing an Adidas track suit to the festival); he cited his influences as the Hong Kong movies that he watched growing up in the 80's, as well as Bruce Lee films, and the influences are evident in the fight scenes. It's a remarkably smart movie, too, with a collection of not-at-all stock characters. The main character is a female ex-con who's trying to go straight by driving a taxi. She's having a tough time of it, though, because she keeps beating the hell out of guys who try to solicit her for sex, and there are a couple of geriatric thugs who keep chasing her for some money owed by her ex-husband. The plot goes from there, and provides a colorful and unique vision of a criminal underworld.

Worth watching as well as listening

[Don Guan · 9/10 · 25 September 2002]

yeah, that's one of the best movies i've recently seen here, in Korea. And this film defines that the director took the right direction after his pretty much unimpressive "Die Bad" which was memorable only with its last scene.

Soundtrack appears in the right time, in the right scene.

Again, Good! good, good movie.. did I say it was a good movie?