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Brutally violent and occasionally funny, this Korean action film spares no one as the two female leads risk everything to change their lot in life.

No Blood No Tears is directed by Ryu Seung-wan, who would go in to direct City Of Violence, another action tour de force that was released in 2006.

The film is the story of two women, Su-jin (Jeon Do-yeon) and Kyeong-seon (Lee Hye-young) and their desperate bid to rid themselves of the bullying men that plague their lives.  Su-jin is an aspiring singer whose gangster boyfriend spends most of his time knocking her around, presumably re-living his glory days as a boxer.  Kyeong-seon is a tough as nails cabbie who frequently gets worked over (though her martial arts skills even the playing field considerably) by goons to whom her missing husband owes a significant amount of money from his gambling debts.

Told in brief segments, we meet Kyeong-seon first, and are introduced to her life with lousy customers hitting on her and treating her like crap, and then we see Su-jin and her boyfriend as they go about their day.  When three street kids come to her aid as he’s pummeling her in the street, she flees and slams her car into Kyeong-seon’s cab in her escape.  The boyfriend Dok-bul (Jeong Jae-yeong) easily catches up to her, and they flee the scene, leaving behind Su-jin’s cellphone, which Kyeong-seon finds and keeps.

She returns the phone to Su-jin, and the restaurant they meet in soon becomes a battleground as they stand up for a child being bullied and beaten by his parents, only to get into a huge fight themselves with the extended family.

Su-jin begins to hatch a plan, based around the dog-fighting ring Dok-bul runs, and they concoct a plan to steal a night’s worth of money and escape their unhappy lives.  Nothing is ever as easy as it seems though, and there are many fights, double-crosses and brutal death scenes to come.

No Blood No Tears is a great little action flick, though the scenes changing so quickly may leave you a bit lost for a few seconds here and there.  I did find that a few scenes seemed played strangely for laughs, which was kind of puzzling.  Judging by the music used in the background the scene was meant to be wacky and slapstick, even though the situations seemed quite dire.  This was true of several scenes in which Kyeong-seon was attacked by the loan sharks haunting her for her husband’s debts, and again during the scene that the women flee the restaurant with a blood thirsty mob in pursuit, the music reminded me of the wacky chase scenes in Benny Hill, and it’s somewhat disconcerting.

No Blood No Tears is a bare bones DVD release, offering only the film itself and subtitling options on its main menu.

This movie is well worth a look for action or martial arts fans, it has made me want to track down the director’s other work.  Give it a look

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