No Tears for the Dead (2014)

Poor american action with korean actors, a lot of violence and unrealistic scenes. Koreans speaking english and swearing at italian, still can't understand that. "Our guy" is beaten, shooted, stabbed, but he is keep fighting like samurai. Bad guys are ugly and disgusting, good guys are pretty, there is a crying woman of course which "bad guys" tried to kill but when they captured her they did nothing. This movie was a waste of time.

A simple plot: a hit-man accidentally kills a little girl and is then sent to put the mother out of her misery.So, how can this possibly go wrong? After the explosive beginning, the pace drops off almost to the point of tedium as we're supposed to feel the agony of characters we never quite connect with. There's something about Triad bank accounts worth around $100 million thrown in to motivate the gangsters and throw some cops into the mix, but it's so poorly put together that - if it couldn't have been fixed via a couple of rewrites - really should have been taken out.Fortunately, 40 minutes or so in, the action kicks off again and it's the excellence we all sat down to watch in the first place.Now, I'm all for catering for genre fans, just as I'm all for making deep, meaningful thrillers, but unfortunately, the plotting doesn't quite have the plausibility or pacing to be the powerful action-thriller the director was hoping it would be and in the end, despite all the great action scenes, No Tears For the Dead left me feeling detached and out in the cold.

Lee Jung-beom became one of my favorite directors, when I watched his debut crime feature "Cruel Winter Blues" and his revenge thriller "The Man from Nowhere". What I really like about his movies is attention to detail and expertly filmed action sequences.This movie continues these features, but this time Lee failed to ignite an interesting engaging and a convincing story.But Lee is all about execution!!!!!!!! I believe that even his previous feature had a totally unbelievable plot it was his execution which shined the screenplay.But this time plot of the movie is undeniably, the culprit for the negative reviews.But on the positive, you are really going to like the action scenes. For the preparation of action scenes, Jang Dong-Gun underwent physical training for months.Final Verdict: Just don't compare it with "The Man from Nowhere" and you will enjoy it.

If you enjoyed "The Man From Nowhere", you will most likely enjoy this as well. It's not nearly as flawless as "The Man From Nowhere" which I will explain shortly. The reason I bring up the "The Man From Nowhere" is that "No Tears For the Dead" (or "Crying Man" in Korean) is a very similar movie but shot on an entirely different canvas. What I mean is you have the typical protagonist or anti-hero with a vague background that gets slowly revealed and starts developing a conscience after botching his last assignment when he accidentally kills an innocent child. He is then hired to go after the child's mother but can't bring himself to do it after he starts developing feelings for her and races to save her from his and her employers. "No Tears For the Dead" is in no way original and the story is almost forgettable since it's been done to death but the action sequences are what makes it stand apart. The bloody and brutal fight/shooting scenes gets your adrenaline going throughout the movie. The night shots of Los Angeles are especially gorgeous which reminded me of Michael Mann's signature visual shots of Los Angeles in his flawless crime thrillers, "Heat" and "Collateral". The lack of character development in "No Tears For the Dead" is what makes "The Man From Nowhere" so much better. In "The Man From Nowhere", you actually cared about the characters and what the protagonist goes through to save his neighbor's child. Here, it is almost nonexistent since the action sequences leave no time for them to get acquainted. However, both use the exact same format of revealing the protagonists' past that made them become who they were and it is also effectively done in "No Tears For the Dead". I came to care about the protagonist but there should've been more between the killer and mother.The ending was also disappointing since it wasn't clear what really happens to everyone. But the final scene was a good way to end the movie on a tragic note which pretty much explains the title of the movie. Overall, it's not as good as "The Man From Nowhere" in terms of plot and character development, but "No Tears for the Dead" is nevertheless another enjoyable entry from its director.