Korea has dominated the midnight-movie/genre slots at international festivals so thoroughly of late that it’s hard not to view Lee Won-tae’s “The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil” in terms of its shortcomings in comparison to the likes of “Train to Busan,” “The Age of Shadows,” “The Wailing” and so on.
But what this fun, slick but slightly forgettable hardboiled actioner lacks in terms of the energy, originality and inventiveness of a true Korean genre classic, it almost makes up for as a showcase for the burly charisma of star Don Lee, aka Ma Dong-Seok.
Playing the criminal element of the title’s triptych Lee is a one-man weather system, so much so that he throws off the three-way balance a bit.
The movie might as well be called “The Gangster…and Some Other Guys, Too, I Guess.”The imbalance isn’t helped by the rather old-hat characterization of “the cop,
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