A Very Good Gangster Drama 
With
Friend, Kwak Kyung Taek almost achieved offering a classical treatment of the story of the tragic end of a friendship. Because if
Friend evokes americain cinema, it's due to a directing and a musical score reminiscent in their best moments of the hollywoodian classical melodrama. Due to its remarkable discretion during the instants of intimacy (sharp frames, subtle use of zoom lenses), the directing makes the emotions being able to get carried without emphasis. The result isn't as convincing when Kwak Kyung Taek tries a more stylish approach: too much Dogma-like camera in the fighting scenes, a heavy use of heartbeats in the final killing for example. But luckily most of the time the movie avoids manierism. The movie is at his best when it avoids emphasis notably in his final going back to the beginning with regrets the way
Bullet in the Head did. For the acting, Jang Dong Kun and Yooh Oh Sung offer geat performances oscillating between restraint and sense of drama. We wouldn't say the same thing about Jeong Wung Taek whose overacting would function in a Hong Kong era John Woo movie but not here. Although the screenplay has some lengths diminishing a little bit the dramatic impact of the movie, it offers us great moments such as a Hero Movie like singing scene with Yoo Oh Sung singing
My Way in such a moving way that we forget the song already been brilliantly used by Scorcese and Iwai.
Friend stands among the most interesting successes of Korea's recent film industry boom. So it's worth seeing.
