THE MAN FROM NOWHERE (Korea, 2010)
Directed by: Lee Jeong-Beom
Starring: Won Bin, Kim Sae-Ron, Kim Tae-hoon, Kim Tae-hoon, Lee Jong-Pil

Winner – “Best Actor” – Won BinBeating everything, including Inception and Iron Man 2, at the box office, and winning 12 of Korea’s biggest film awards (including 3 for Won Bin as “Best Actor”) THE MAN FROM NOWHERE is the hard-hitting Korean action thriller transformed into a streamlined, all-star blockbuster with style to spare. Won Bin, best known for being a prettyboy, turns in a performance that’s one part Jason Bourne and one part Batman, playing  it with such conviction he has now permanently altered his onscreen image. Crammed with colorful bad guys, joint-cracking action and a missile-guided storyline, THE MAN FROM NOWHERE is directed without an ounce of fat by Lee Jeong-Beom, who blew away audiences two years ago with his powerful, poignant Cruel Winter Blues.

Won Bin plays Tae-Sik, a silent stranger whose emotions are locked down tighter than a bank vault. He runs a ghetto pawn shop whose customers are all dead-enders, he barely talks and he avoids eye contact. The only human being he lets into his apartment is So-Mi, the neglected and abused child of the neighborhood junkie. These are the kind of people who will die alone in their apartments one day, and no one will miss them until someone notices the smell. But then, two horrible mistakes are made.

Mistake #1: So-Mi’s junkie mom decides to steal some heroin from the local gang. The gang kill her and then they make Mistake #2: they hand over orphaned So-Mi to a black market organ harvester. This really pisses off Tae-Sik and before you can say, “That’s my eyeball!” this sleek pain machine is going after the bad guys like a human torpedo. He’s not just going to kill them, he’s going to kill everyone they ever met and burn down their houses, too.

Headed up by the noble but brutal enforcer, Thai martial artist Thanayong Wongtrakul, the organ harvesters are a colorful crew who stick out like a gallery of Dick Tracy rogues. More than anything, THE MAN FROM NOWHERE is a movie that has gobbled up every single Hong Kong heroic bloodshed movie ever made and transformed them into this contemporary, updated, high impact entertainment machine.