in 1990, '91 and '92, im directed the three 'general's son' films. in his debut role, park sang-min won a 'best new actor' award, whilst the film won 'best korean film' and 'most popular film' and 'best at production design' awards.
one
kim doo-han's (park sang-min) mother died when he was a child; he lived the life of a beggar, stealing food, eventually ending up in jail. throughout this time, kim survived because he was a gifted fighter. in the mid 1930s, kim is released from prison and decides to shun the life of a beggar and find work. he begins, cleaning the toilets of a cinema, owned by local gansters. kim soon begins to rise through the ranks, aided, in no small part, by his fighting ability. as time moves on, kim becomes a major player in the jong-lo gang, which becomes the biggest gang, swallowing up the territory of others. when kim ki-hwa, the head of jong-lo, is arrested, kim becomes their leader: a clash with the local yakuza looms on the horizon.
two
the local yakuza have tightened their grip around jong-lo territory, during one of kim doo-han's spells in jail, on the morning after his release, the yakuza attack a hung-over jong-lo gang. they easily beat kim and his men, forcing them to pay taxes on their territory, to the yakuza. kim ki-hwa, who is once again the leader of jong-lo, get's sick of paying the japanese and leaves.
kim begins to rebuild jong-lo, taking on the territories of other gangs and growing in strength; a dey of reckoning with the yakuza is coming. meanwhile, kim becomes acquainted with a korean novelist, who tells kim about his father's exploits; sparking off thoughts about a fight between korea and japan, bigger than jong-lo's fight against the yakuza.
three
kim doo-han flees jong-lo, for manchu, finding kim ki-hwa running things, in the shadow of mountain bandits. kim soon finds himself having to flee manchu, returning once more to jong-lo, only to find that the japanese have tightened their grip. the jong-lo gang is at it's weakest and the yakuza are ready to attempt to wipe them out. will this be kim's last stand?
as you'd expect from im kwon-taek, these films are good; they have style, good cinematography, great performances and, because it's a trilogy, im fashions a world with depth, inhabited by a rich cast of characters. park sing-min seems to convincingly age ten years, over the three years that it took to film and puts in a great performance as a man who fights with both his brain and fists.
the lack of guns in the film, was a refreshing change and is filled with some pretty solid brawling going down. park sang-min is pretty talented; his unstylised (probably quite realistic, really) one-on-one and one-on-many fights are pretty damn good, as are the many-on-many clashes. there is some, very limited, gun-play and plenty of sword weilding yakuzas thrown in for good measure...
the dvds look pretty good, sound good, but the music (apart from the singing in the second film) is pretty poor, although it get's progressively better and there's some over zealous use of sound effects, here and there. the subtitles are a little clunky (some poor grammer, different spellings of the same name and some spelling mistakes) at times, but a bit of imagination will get you by.
highly recommended.
the general's son collection is available on dvd for $24.99 from dvdfromkorea.com - it's a limited, three disc, edition. my copy had a card, signed by im kwon-taek, inside!!!
