A BITTERSWEET LIFE is one of the best twenty-first century crime drams to come from South Korea as I discovered this classic 20 years after it came out. It is a bittersweet drama that is about unrequited love and what you will do to try to stay alive when things go wrong. A loyal gangster working as a nightclub manager is assigned to watch over the mistress of a crime boss, but things take a bloody turn after he fails to follow orders. A BITTERSWEET LIFE has beautiful cinematography, great direction, and a story that slowly builds as it develops our main character. The movie hinges on if you care for him as you hope for him.

A BITTERSWEET LIFE is presented in a high bit rate by Second Sight Films as it easily tops 90 MBps many times. The picture quality is great in a top notch transfer.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
The 4K UHD disc has tons of special features including audio commentaries, a making-of documentary with an optional audio commentary, archival featurettes on the various aspects of the movie, deleted and extended scenes with optional audio commentary from the director, theatrical trailers and teasers, and TV spots. It is an interesting assortment of extras that go deep into every aspect of the movie and the deleted scenes show scenes cut because they didn't fit the narrative flow.

FINAL ANALYSIS: Second Sight Films impresses with this 4K UHD disc of a South Korean crime drama that many outside of South Korean may have never heard of. It is one of the best foreign crime dramas of the 21st century which isn't bad for a movie about 20 years old.

This blu-ray review is ©10-11-2024 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. No Korean actors were emotionally harmed in the writing of this review. Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com