No Tears for the Dead

No Tears for the Dead (Crying Man) was released in 2014 as an action thriller. Starring Jang Dong-gun, Kim Minhee and Brian Tee, No Tears for the Dead is a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking and tear jerking film that will be sure to keep you wanting more.

Plot

Having immigrated to the United States with his drug addicted mother, Gon befell physical and emotional abuse. One day, his mother hands Gon a few dollars and asks him to go into the gas station and demand change. It's one of her many ploys to abandon him. Gon, knowing of his mother's plan, waits until she's distracted before crawling into the trunk of their car. Hours seem to pass and Gon has fallen into deep slumber, but he only awakes when a gun shot explodes into the atmosphere. His mother succeeds in abandoning him by taking her own life and leaving him to fend for himself.

Gon is later taken into the arms of the Mafia who raise and train him to become a cold-blooded killer. Gon lives the mental instabilities of his life through sloppy kills and slowly finds himself becoming exhausted of this horrid lifestyle. Nonetheless, an accomplice known as Chaoz — who Gon saved years back in Cambodia — does his best to care and help Gon through his dissension into near insanity.

Thankfully, Gon is soon awarded with his last mission before retirement. To break up a deal and retrieve a file, Gon goes undercover and finds himself in the middle of an elegant bar. While sitting and awaiting for his targets to arrive, Gon catches sight of a little girl infatuated by his seemingly mysterious nature. Floored by this brand of innocence, Gon makes the girl laugh from across the room and leaves an origami bird as a departure present.

He narrows down the members that have attended this transaction process and bursts in at the last second, gunning everyone down in his notably sloppy ways and also getting a shot to the shoulder before eliminating the last of his prey. Gon spends some time looking down at those that he has killed and looking through the contents that were shared in this meeting when a set of footsteps could be heard outside.

Impulsive and thinking on his feet, Gon lifts his gun and fires out three rounds that shatter through the wooden panel. And all is quiet.

Paranoid and curious all the same, Gon approaches the door and peeks out only to find the little girl standing outside before collapsing from a fatal wound to the chest.

Gon — overwhelmed with guilt for the murder of this child — drowns himself in alcohol before Chaoz and his two other accomplices find him with an infected bullet wound and on the verge of shock days after the hit.

After fixing up his distraught comrade, Chaoz takes Gon back to meet their head contractor who gives Gon yet another mission. Upset more than words can express, Gon threatens and throws a tantrum while absolutely refusing any other wrong deeds. But he finds himself quieting upon realizing that the only reason why he's been called in for another mission is something he brought upon himself.

Because his next target is Choi Mo-gyeong, mother of the murdered little girl.

Overall

Having yet another sleepless night a few months back, I found No Tears for the Dead and immediately added it to my instant queue on Netflix. I didn't think much of it since it seemed to have a cheesy synopsis (which I soon found out was totally misleading) and kept it to the back of the list.

After watching The Man From Nowhere, I was looking up some information on the director only to find that he too screen played and directed No Tears for the Dead. I made plans to watch the movie sometime soon and oh god, I don't know why I hadn't earlier.

From the beginning, you're given quite an interesting opening scene. Immediately you find a little girl in a place where she's not supposed to be. It seems to be an elegant bar with a jazz singer on stage and men in classified conversations. And then we befall the man behind it all — Jang Dong-gun who plays a mighty fine killer. And what was so innocent and sweet about him despite this cold-blooded upbringing was his need to make this little girl laugh.

Who would've thought that in the first, maybe, two minutes of their eyes meeting, I would want Jang Dong-gun as my husband? Too bad he's already married.

It's very rare for me to really become hooked onto something if the beginning doesn't bring me in. Opening scenes are crucial and it seemed like Kim Ji-woon was a god at catching my attention with his intricate movies. But bless Lee Jung-beom. He's definitely gotten my respect. Talk about heart-wrenching when Gon finds out that he just murdered the little girl after a sloppy shoot-out in a separate hall. Just the look of pure shock resonating against his face before the scene was cut absolutely took my breath away.

I will admit I was so taken aback when I found out that Brian Tee was in this. Bringing back my Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift obsession is a total foul, but man does he look better with age and facial hair. I really liked Chaoz and Gon's side story. Though it wasn't fully apparent, it was mentioned that Gon saved Chaoz in Cambodia and ever since then, Chaoz seemed to have looked up to this superior hitman affiliated with the Mafia.

I really loved Chaoz's passion and love for Gon even though it's not always seen. The small things really gave it away. When Gon was going through this disillusioned period of grace and was half beaten by another accomplice, Chaoz threw off the individual hoping to protect Gon. And in another instance — after Gon nearly skewered a member of the Mafia with a pair of chopsticks — Chaoz seemed to be second in line holding up his hand and making sure no one else advanced on the irate hitman.

Even when Chaoz is given the order to kill Gon, you can tell he does everything in his power to turn around Gon's betrayal against the family. My favorite scene has to be when Gon tries jumping off this balcony, but Chaoz catches him and asks, with tear-filled eyes, "Why are you doing this?"

It's such an odd question to be thrown around after a gun fight nearly five minutes back. But Chaoz still gives Gon the benefit of the doubt until the very end.

Gon went through a horrible childhood. And, of course, it didn't get any better being raised under the Mafia's reign. Nonetheless, you can see how the years of pain has him teetering on this sense of instability. I feel like the only reason why Gon was even a sloppy killer was because he simply became tired of this path of violence. Over exaggerating his shots, leaving himself open as a target, Gon should've been better than that. The only time you see his character start to strengthen himself is when he's sent to kill the mother of the innocent girl because of her affiliation with an investment firm laundering money.

Kim Minhee played a good for nothing mother known as Choi Mo-gyeong. It's later that you find out she lost both her husband and daughter at the same time which makes sense as to why the little girl was at the criminal transaction point. Gon murdered half of Mo-gyeong's family, but the only one she seemed to care for was her daughter which made me believe that she and her husband had a strained relationship.

For the most part it seemed like Mo-gyeong was playing through this grieving process as she turned to drugs and alcohol for comfort. But it seemed as if Gon put the blame on her for her insignificance. And it's later that you find out she was actually a key ingredient behind the investment firm's money laundering scam which means she wasn't grieving but going through a sense of guilt.

Gon actually has a moment where he's crossed between two options. Meeting with Mo-gyeong and realizing her incompetence as a mother, Gon has flashbacks that bring back memories of his own abusive mother that abandoned him. And he thinks of how Mo-gyeong abandoned her daughter. In this moment his finger is on the trigger and he's seriously ready to kill her unconscious state of mind (as she's previously tried to overdose), but instead, he alerts the police and allows her to live.

Even though Mo-gyeong didn't deserve to live, Gon protected her regardless and I think it was maybe because of his guilt. Instead of killing someone without no question or regard, Gon went out and opposed his family — the mafia — just to ensure Mo-gyeong was safe. And it wasn't like Chaoz was the only person Gon had to worry about. Mo-gyeong was targeted by two parties and the fact that Gon combated against both of them was really something.

I can't even express how this movie went from zero to sixty in a matter of minutes. Brian Tee couldn't be any sexier with the handling of his sniper or his rage-filled tantrums. And goodness, I was panting through that intense fight scene between Brian and Dong-gun near the end.

As if Jang Dong-gun wasn't sexy enough. Throw him for a loop as an exhausted, depressed and guilt ridden hitman with tats and that's enough eye candy to deal with for a lifetime.

If you've seen The Man From Nowhere or are a huge fan of action thrillers, No Tears for the Dead will leave you hungry for more. With all action and no romance, this was just my cup of tea and may be yours too.