Paid in Blood | aka Tomb of the River (2021) Review

“Paid in Blood” Hi-YAH! Poster

Director: Yoon Young-Bin
Cast: Yu Oh-Seong, Jang Hyuk, Park Sung-Geun, Oh Dae-Hwan, Lee Hyun-Kyun, Shin Seung-Hwan, Song Young-Kyu, Kim Jun-Bae, Lee Chae-Young, Han Sun-Hwa 
Running Time: 119 min.

By Paul Bramhall

In 2021’s Paid in Blood everything that’s old feels new again, a Korean gangster flick that harkens back to the late 90’s/early 2000’s heyday, a time when Korea practically made the gangster movie a genre of its own. Of course no amount of hacking, slashing, and getting beaten by steel pipes or planks of wood can last forever, and in more recent years the gangster genre has fallen on hard times in the Korean film industry. A result of a country whose cinematic output has become much more commercialised that it was just 20 years ago, the grit that attracted many to the likes of A Bittersweet Life and A Dirty Carnival has now been covered with a sheen of gloss, and does anyone really clock in for a glossy gangster movie?

First time director Yoon Young-bin seems to be aware of this, so has dialled back the sheen for a tale of backstabbing (often literally) and bloodthirsty ambition. A native of Gangneung, Young-bin chooses his hometown for his debut to play out in, a city that’s famous for its coffee and hosted a number of the games during the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics (both of which are referenced). The story itself takes place in 2017, 6 months before the Olympics are due to start, and involves the power struggle for ownership of a newly commissioned resort. Encompassing a casino, a club, and hotel, the resort is the project of a retired crime boss who plans to have one of his underbosses, played by Yoo Oh-sung (The Great Battle, 7 Assassins), manage it. 

News that Oh-sung has been chosen soon reaches the ears of the other underbosses which doesn’t go down well, however none of that compares to a vicious Korean-Chinese (Korean gangster cinemas favorite type of villain!) debt collector who enters the fray, intent on taking it for himself and more than willing to get his hands dirty. Played by Jang Hyuk (The Swordsman, Volcano High), we first meet his character in a prologue set in 2007. When an unidentified fishing boat is spotted drifting offshore, the local fishermen haul it in and discover a blood covered Hyuk squatting in the hull, a corpse next to him who’s flesh he’s been eating to stay alive. It’s an attention-grabbing opening, and it feels like somewhat of a miss that we never gain an insight into how his character develops over the succeeding 10 years, instead meeting him again in 2017 as a stab happy debt collector who upsets the balance of the unspoken gangster hierarchy.

The opposing sides that Oh-sung and Hyuk represent essentially form the core of Paid in Blood’s narrative – Oh-sung is the loyal and by the book’s gangster, forced to go against Hyuk as an out-of-control whirlwind of violence and chaos. Indeed structurally Paid in Blood feels very much like a 70’s yakuza flick from Japan. Tales of the traditional gangster versus the violent upstart with no respect for tradition were a staple of the genre, and here Young-bin brings the concept to a contemporary Korean setting. The Japanese influence can also be felt in a scene near the start, which sees one of Oh-sung’s soon-to-be-married lackeys getting dipped in the water by being hung off an excavator, recalling a similar scene from Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano’s Sonatine, only done far more playfully.

In fact more than any filmmaker it’s Kitano’s influence which constantly comes through the most, especially the Outrage trilogy in its endless parade of black and white suited gangsters and sleek looking vehicles that accompany them. Oh-sung is a solid actor who’s taken on a variety of roles during his expansive career in front of the camera, however it’ll always be his role in 2001’s Friend and 2013’s Friend 2 that he’ll be most remembered for, and here Young-bin isn’t afraid to lean into the same charisma that Oh-sung brought to his most iconic role. I don’t think we see Oh-sung even once in anything other than a sharply fitted suit, and this in itself is representative of the approach Paid in Blood takes to the genre. It’s a straight-faced gangster tale that’s fuelled on machismo, and roles for women could barely be classed as window dressing, but it definitely doesn’t pretend to be anything that it isn’t.

Similarly, there’s a refreshing old-school feel to the violence on display. While guns have become much more prevalent in Korean cinema of late, here it’s all about the steel pipes, planks of wood, and tape covered daggers. Stabbings are particularly gratuitous and plenty, with one scene inducing a legitimate wince, and a complete lack of any CGI blood sees the fake stuff flow liberally. We even get a bloody bromance between Oh-sung and Hyuk’s right hand lackeys, played by Oh Dae-hwan (Deliver Us from Evil, Office) and Shin Seung-hwan (The Witness, Veteran) respectively, that feels like it’s been teleported straight from an 80’s Hong Kong triad flick (probably starring Andy Lau) complete with macho musings while trying to kill each other. 

It doesn’t quite hark back to the entertainingly bloody violence found in the likes of mid-10’s productions like Gangnam Blues and The Divine Move, mainly due to the fact that much of the violence lacks any distinctive choreography to elevate it to the next level, but it’s still a welcome sight. Where Paid in Blood becomes unstuck is in how much time passes before each burst of violence, and its ability to keep the audience engaged throughout.

As a debut director Young-bin maintains an engaging pace for the first hour of the 2-hour runtime, however things begin to become unstuck in the second half. It’s not so much a case of Young-bin doing something specific that sets things off on the wrong course, so much as it’s a case that he doesn’t do anything. If a movie is going to be a couple of hours long, at some point the pace and tension needs to be cranked up, however this fails to happen, and instead it continues to coast along in third gear when it should be shifting up to fourth of fifth. The stakes may be becoming more urgent and life threatening, but as the audience we only know it because of the dialogue being spoken, and around the 80-minute mark I was genuinely surprised to realise that there was still 40 minutes to go.

One of the biggest factors to blame is the overabundance of characters that don’t necessarily add anything to the overall plot. Young-bin introduces various supporting roles, such as Sung-oh’s police officer friend played by Park Sung-geun (Me and Me, The Man Standing Next) and another rival crime boss played by the ridiculously deep voiced Song Young-kyu (Baseball Girl, Extreme Job), which would likely have benefitted from being left on the cutting room floor. While Young-bin’s obvious desire to create an epic crime tale is an admirable one, his ability in the director’s chair doesn’t quite match it yet, and the fact that he’s working from his own script no doubt meant it would also have been a tough call to cut out any of the characters he’d taken the time to create.

It’s a shame, as had a good 30 minutes been shaved off Paid in Blood, I’m sure it would be perceived as a mean and lean slice of mid-budget Korean gangster goodness, but as it is the final third becomes a real slog to get through due to the lack of any real sense of urgency. In the end Young-bin’s debut is best described as a gangster movie that has all the right ingredients – an iconic cast, a story of revenge, and a healthy dose of violence – however he kept them in the oven for too long, and how edible the end result is will really depend on the person who’s eating it. For diehard gangster flick fans there may well be enough here to make Paid in Blood a tentative recommendation, however for everyone else the overly long runtime paired up with the pacing issues make it a tough proposition.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5/10