The Gang­ster, the Cop, the Devil

It’s 2005, and there’s a ser­i­al killer on the loose – or so believes loose-can­non detec­tive Jung Tae-seok (Kim Moo-yeol). His supe­ri­ors aren’t con­vinced, but Jung soon finds an unlike­ly part­ner in local mob boss Jang Dong-su (Ma Dong-seok), who sur­vives an attempt­ed stab­bing by the mys­te­ri­ous mur­der­er (Kim Sung-kyu) and is out for revenge. ​“I can prob­a­bly catch him quick­er,” declares Jang, and he’s not wrong. Com­pared to the hope­less cops, the gang­sters have envi­able resources, man­pow­er and free­dom from such things as ethics and due process. A shaky alliance is formed.

While not wild­ly orig­i­nal – Asian crime cin­e­ma has mined these uncom­mon team-ups and eth­i­cal ambi­gu­i­ties for decades – The Gang­ster, the Cop, the Dev­il pulls off its famil­iar twists and turns with style and verve. An expan­sive, elec­tric-neon aer­i­al shot at the start of the film places us firm­ly in Michael Mann ter­ri­to­ry, and the machis­mo of the film’s pro­tag­o­nists spills over into direc­tor Lee Won-tae’s amped-up aes­thet­ic, from flashy scene tran­si­tions and mon­tages to gen­er­ous help­ings of slow-mo, crunchy fight chore­og­ra­phy and a dri­ving rock sound­track throughout.

The film is slick, styl­ish and con­sis­tent­ly enter­tain­ing, but it would be noth­ing with­out its head­line lead per­for­mances. Kim Moo-yeol has a Col­gate grin and water­mel­on biceps, and his Jung Tae-seok likes to blow off steam by wan­der­ing into an ille­gal gam­bling den for a scrap while his part­ner is stuck in a traf­fic jam on the way to a crime scene. And even when he’s wrestling with his con­science as he shares intel­li­gence with the bad guys ​‘to catch the worse guy’, he is still pow­ered by smarm and charm. Expect Chris Pratt to take on the role if there’s ever a Hol­ly­wood remake.

There’s no deny­ing, though, that this is Ma Dong-seok’s film. Now famil­iar to inter­na­tion­al audi­ences after a break­out sup­port­ing role as a man-moun­tain soon-to-be father in the zom­bie hor­ror Train to Busan, he’s the per­fect fit for a one-man mob­ster army. He’s giv­en many oppor­tu­ni­ties to use his hulk­ing form to its full poten­tial – most mem­o­rably when he launch­es his fist through a wood­en door, to deliv­er a knock-out punch to the poor sod cow­er­ing on the oth­er side – but Lee recog­nis­es his lead’s soul­ful, even good-natured depths. Jang Dong-su may be a vio­lent mob­ster, but he has more poise than the hap­less cops on the oth­er side of the law.

Indeed, for all the tooth-pulling tor­ture and nefar­i­ous deal­ings, there seems to be more cama­raderie and com­mu­ni­ty in the mob than there is in the bick­er­ing, bitchy and thor­ough­ly demor­alised police force. This is per­haps best cap­tured in a small scene that might be a cheeky riff on Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neigh­bour Totoro, in which Ma Dong-seok’s bear-like giant offers his umbrel­la to a school­girl at a bus stop. When the detec­tive inter­rupts, chastis­ing the girl for unwit­ting­ly trust­ing a crim­i­nal, she declares, ​“You look more like a gang­ster than him!” Sub­tle? Hard­ly. But, as with all of The Gang­ster, the Cop, the Devil’s on-the-nose plea­sures, it gets the job done.