The Man from Nowhere (2010 film)

The Man from Nowhere (Korean: 아저씨; RR: Ajeossi; lit. Mister) is a 2010 South Korean neo-noir action-thriller film starring Won Bin and written and directed by Lee Jeong-beom. In the film, a mysterious man embarks on a bloody rampage when his young neighbor is kidnapped.

The Man from Nowhere was the highest-grossing film in South Korea in 2010.^[2] It was released in the United States and Canada on October 1, 2010. The film also marked Won's final appearance as an actor to date.

Cha Tae-sik is a quiet man running a pawnshop. His only friend is So-mi, a little girl from the same neighborhood. So-mi's mother Hyo-jeong is a go-go dancer and opium addict. Instructed by her lover, Hyo-jeong steals a large pack of opium being sold at the bar where she works and hides it in a camera bag, which she pawns to Tae-sik for safekeeping. Drug lord Oh Myung-gyu tasks his subordinate brothers, Man-seok and Jong-seok, with retrieving the opium. Jong-seok locates Hyo-jeong and tortures her in front of So-mi until she reveals the location of the drugs.

Jong-seok's lackeys Du-chi and Bear go to the pawnshop, but Tae-sik easily overpowers them. Holding So-mi hostage, Jong-seok forces Tae-sik to deliver the opium to Myung-gyu. Man-seok, tired of working for his brother, informs the police, but Myung-gyu evades arrest. Tae-sik is arrested after discovering Hyo-jeong's body with her organs harvested in the back of his car. Tae-sik escapes from the police station, alarming them with his display of combat skills. Upon further investigation, the officers discover that Tae-sik was a former covert operative for South Korean Army Intelligence, but retired after an assassin killed his pregnant wife.

The brothers track down Hyo-jeong's lover and kill him, while the brothers' bodyguard Ramrowan kills Myung-gyu, thus allowing the brothers to take over his operations. Following a lead from the burner phone Jong-seok gave him, Tae-sik tracks Du-chi to a nightclub. As Tae-sik asks about the brothers, Ramrowan walks in and shoots at them, killing Du-chi and wounding Tae-sik. Tae-sik escapes and finds his former partner, who nurses him back to health and helps him acquire a gun. Tae-sik goes back to the city and discovers a drug manufacturing plant; in the process of destroying it, he kills Jong-seok and frees the enslaved child workers.

Tae-sik confronts Man-seok's gang at his condominium. Claiming that he had So-mi's eyes harvested, Man-seok shows Tae-sik a container with two preserved eyeballs. Enraged, Tae-sik brutally kills the gang members, including Ramrowan and Man-seok. As Tae-sik prepares to commit suicide out of grief, a dirty but unharmed So-mi finds him. Ramrowan, who took pity on her because she had been kind to him, had spared her life—the eyes in the container belonged to the gangsters' surgeon. The police allow Tae-sik and So-mi to ride together after Tae-sik's arrest. When So-mi falls asleep, Tae-sik asks them to stop at a small convenience store where he buys a backpack along with other school supplies. Tae-sik tells So-mi that she is going to be on her own as the police have to take him away. Before leaving, Tae-sik asks her for a hug and breaks down in tears as they embrace.

During its August 6–8 opening weekend, the film recorded 712,840 admissions, taking the number 1 spot on the box office charts for five weeks straight. It had sold a total of 6,228,300 tickets when it finished its theatrical run on November 17, 2010.^[2] The film grossed a total of US$42,484,155 in South Korea.^[3] On October 1, 2010 CJ Entertainment gave the film a limited theatrical release to North American theaters where it grossed US$35,751 in 1 theater its opening weekend. After widening the release up to 19 theaters, the film grossed US$528,175 in the U.S. and Canada.^[1]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 8 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.3/10. Russell Edwards of Variety wrote "Brutal violence dominates the dynamic Korean thriller The Man From Nowhere. Local heartthrob Won Bin (Mother, Tae Guk Gui) transforms himself into an action hero in writer-helmer Lee Jeong-beom's swift and blood-soaked yarn, about a mystery man who gets caught up in a gang war while trying to protect a child, recalling Luc Besson's The Professional."^[4]

Soundtrack list:

The Man from Nowhere, along with Park Chan-wook's The Vengeance Trilogy (2002–2005), influenced John Wick with "[their] minimalist composition and graphic nature."^[17]

In March 2012, Dimension Films acquired the rights to an English-language remake of The Man from Nowhere; plans are to have Shawn Christensen, who wrote and directed the 2012 short film Curfew, write the adaptation.^[18][19] On August 5, 2020, it was reported that the remake will be produced by John Wick director Chad Stahelski and Jason Spitz with a script provided by Derek Kolstad for New Line Cinema.^[20]

A Hindi remake titled Rocky Handsome, directed by Nishikant Kamat and starring John Abraham and Diya Chalwad, was released on March 25, 2016.^[21][22][23]

• Official website (in Korean)
• The Man from Nowhere at IMDb
• The Man from Nowhere at the Korean Movie Database (in Korean)
• The Man from Nowhere at HanCinema
• The Man from Nowhere at Naver (in Korean)