Crunching violence, whimsical humour and semi-ironic domestic asides are all in a day’s work for mute assassin Killa (Shin Ha-Kyun), as he dispatches all manner of nasties and hypocrites on his way to paying for the tongue operation which will restore his speech. Although Chan-Wook Park’s regular cameraman, designer and editor are all on board, it’s not quite a clone, since slashing knife-play notwithstanding the protagonist’s essentially sweet-natured, as he gathers together an ad hoc ‘family’ (passing prostitute and street-urchin) who’ll become more of a liability as the gangland plot kicks in. All slightly over-familiar to Asian cinema fanciers, but done with verve and a cumulatively disarming emotional charge.
