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The sister (Lim Ji-eun) of deaf-mute Ryu (Shin Ha-kyun) sesperately
needs a kidney transplant, but since her blood type is very rare, a proper
kidney for her is not easily found ... so Ryu even turns to organ thieves
to provide him withthe kidney - but they only take his money and
his kidney and make a clean getaway.
Soon afterwards, the hospital informs Ryu they have found a kidney
matching his sister's bloodtype, but now Ryu has no more money to pay for
the operation - the organ thieves have taken it all.
So he and his girlfriend Yeong-mi (Bae Du-na) - a girl with confused
leftist ideas - think up a desperate plan: they want to kidnap Yoosun (Han
Bo-bae), the daughter of Ryu's former boss Park (Song Kang-ho), and hold
her for ransom - not much, just enough to pay for Ryu's sister's surgery.
The kidnapping goes well, and during the time they hold her, Ryu, his
sister and Yeong-mi all make friends with the little girl. Even the
handover of the money goes well, since Park has kept his promise and not
called the police.
But when Ryu returns home with the money, he finds his sister has
committed suicide. So he drives her - and Yoosun, whom he hasn't yet
released - to the lake where they spent their childhood and buries her.
But while he's so caught up in burying her, he fails to realize that a
mentally challenged man threatens Yoosun, so much so that she jumps into
the lake and drowns. Only when his sister is duly buried does Ryu - who
being deafmute couldn't hear the girl's screams for help - realize the
disaster that has happened, which is all the more tragic since he really
liked the girl.
When Park learns about his daughter's death from the police, who have
found his daughter's body, he has only one thought, revenge - but at first
he doesn't even know whom to have his revenge on. Only gradually, from a
cop who lets himself being bribed as he needs the money for his son's
kidney transplantation (much like Ryu needed the money), does Park find
out about a certain deafmute and his girlfriend, and somehow he finds a
trail leading him back to the lake where his daughter was found - where he
finds Ryu's sister's grave, ironically with the help of the same mentally
challenged man who was actually responsible for his daughter's death.
Ryu meanwhile wants revenge as well, revenge on the organ thieves who
forced him to kidnap the girl in the first place, and with Yeong-mi as a
decoy, he soon gains entrance to their hide-out and kills them all.
Park meanwhile has found out Yeong-mi, tied her to a chair and is now
treating her with electroshocks to learn about the whereabouts of Ryu.
Yeong-me won't tell though but apologizes for the murder of his daughter
and threatens that her terrorist group will kill him. He's not
impressed and eventually grills her to death. Then he goes to Ryu's place
and waits.
Ryu though has meanwhile found out about his girlfriend's death and'w
on't return home until at least hte wound inflicted on him by one of the
organ thieves is healed. Then he makes up a good plan to enter his
appartment and surprise Park when he's asleep. What he didn't expect
though is that Park has wired up the door to the appartment, and when Ryu
tries to open it, he receives a massive shock ...
When he wakes up, Ryu finds himself all tied up in the lake little
Yoosun died in, and Park cuts the arteries of his feet to slowly let him
bleed to death ...
It seems as if Park ahs the last laugh, but then, as he is about to
bury Ryu, Yeong-mi's terrorist group does show up and they
cold-bloodedly kill him.
At times, this film is incredibly violent, even if the violence is not
always all that graphic or explicite - which of course doesn't make the
violence less disquieting. But the film doesn't work so much as a gore
movie or standard revenge thriller but more as a very bitter black comedy
and bleak social satire. Many of the unusual plottwists of the story - up
until Park's death at the hands of a terrorist group noone, not even the
audience, ever believed in - can actually be taken as quite funny only
toned down by the overall serious subject matter of the film. On the other
hand, the very downbeat story never really gets one down due to its
underlying irony. In other words, a film well worth watching.
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