Movie Description
A Bittersweet Life is a 2005 South Korean neo-noir action drama film written and directed by Kim Jee-woon. It stars Lee Byung-hun as Sun-woo, a hitman who becomes targeted by his boss after he spares the latter's cheating mistress.
The film was released theatrically in South Korea on 1 April 2005. It opened on 265 screens throughout the country, and registered a total of 1,112,950 admissions by the end of its run. It was also screened out of competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. A 30 seconds longer director's cut was later released, featuring slight cutting and re-arrangement of scenes, swapping of music placement and some additional scenes that do not appear in the theatrical cut. Critical reception was highly positive, with critics describing it as "organic, essential, beautifully staged and refreshingly realistic." In 2009, Empire named it third in a poll of the "20 Greatest Gangster Movies You've Never Seen* (*Probably)."
