Guns and Talks (2001)

Korean action is one of my favourite genres. Which takes some saying because I hate the pigeon-holing of films (and anything else) into narrow bins with names. It is lazy, often debatable, and sometimes just wrong.

So it is with Guns and Talks. I wouldn't call this an action film. But it is Korean ;)

It has some of the elements of an action film, but no-one who had actually watched the film all the way through would call it an action film. Unless they were told to promote it as an action film...

Anyway, I digress. Despite my initial disappointment at the lack of action (I thought I was in the mood for blood) I did enjoy this film. It is sort of quirky and somewhat thought provoking.

At first the 4 anti-heroes are so matter-of-fact about being hired assassins that you wonder how they can be likeable characters. But over the film you do grow to like them in a way... because even killers are people? This is helped by the police being nasty pieces of work too. If not more so than the 4 friends.

There is some humour too. At one point one of the killers is talking about his feelings and he thinks the others have been moved to tears... when in fact they have covered their faces because they are cracking up laughing. Nicely done in the context of the story.

A decent film, not much action, but plenty of entertainment.