Directed by Yang Ik-June 
A terrific first film from director Ik-June, who also plays the lead, wrote and produced  it, this hard-hitting thriller is at times almost impossible to watch for its unremitting violence and bleak view of life. It follows the debt collector Sang-hoon, a man seemingly devoid of humanity and totally tuned to violence, who is as happy to beat up his colleagues as the student demonstrators or debtors he's hired to put the frighteners on. So heartless is he that even the boss who sets him out on these errands and makes a good living from it seems a model of kindliness in contrast. 

Then he meets tough schoolgirl Yeon-Hee who confronts him when he casually spits on her in the street, and is surprised by her coolness in the face of his threats. She's not afraid of him because she herself is a victim of a wife-beating father gone mad and a bullying elder brother, and a strange bond builds between the two. He begins to show his buried self, and we learn about his own terrible and violent family background.
   The story is apparently woven out of the director's own  life and those of his friends, and a bleak view it is of a society overwhelmed with violence, where family life can be a salve but is often a terrible burden, and where love can so easily turn to hate. Shreds of decency are continually thwarted and there isn't much hope of a good outcome for even the best intentioned individuals in bleak circles of tragedy. Maybe the mix is a little over-egged, for it seems that behind every door and on every street corner lies violence. One leaves the film bludgeoned, and with a startling vocabulary of Korean swear words. But it's an adrenaline-soaked ride.

Seen at Black Nights Film Festival, Cinema Artis, Tallinn, 4 December 2009