D V D C R Y P T

MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER

Directed by Jo Jin-Gyu
Produced by Soon-Yeoul Lee
Cast: Eun-Kyung Shin, Sang-Myeon Park, Jae-mo Ahn & In-kwon Kim

2001/95 mins/Color/DTS
1.85:1 anamorphic/Korean/Korea/NTSC Region 1

Review from the BEAR DVD

MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER starts off with the story telling of a legend, a legend amongst the gang. In one superbly shot fighthing sequence that takes place in the rain we are vaguely introduced to the legend... For the person you gets to listen to the story, a new recruit in the gang, and for us the viewers we find out that the legend also known as "Big Brother" is actually a woman... and one hell of a woman she is! Eun-Jin Cha (Eun-Kyung Shin) is lovely but strong minded and more manly then all of her gang members!

After years of searching, she finds her sister from whom she was separated from back when they were at an orphanage. Her sister is suffering from terminal cancer and doesn't have much time to live but before she goes away she ask one thing of Cha, that she'd love to see her get married.

One night after getting in a fight with some thugs, Cha meets the shy and teddy bear-like Su-Il Kang (Sang-Myeon Park) which she met earlier at the hospital while visiting her sister. Faster that they can both say "Yes", they are both married but Su-II has no idea of the "job" his wife does... she's second in command of one of the most important yakuza gang and are presently in a huge fight for power against the White Shark clan. This sets the story for yet another amazing Korean film.

First time director Jo Jin-Gyu superbly turns the film from action to comedy and keeps the story involving and entertaining. Eun-Kyung Shin, who we've seen as the lead in THE RING VIRUS and UZUMAKI, gives a great performance... as a matter of fact all the cast is incredibly good. Miramax have bought the rights for an American remake so that means that there is no way this film will find any kind of distribution in North America, they did the same thing with DOBERMANN.

This is yet another very good DVD package released by BEAR as a two disc edition. First of all the film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and the image is anamorphic. There is no complains I can make about the transfer, it is sharp, rich in color saturation with no signs of compression, pixelisation or artifacts... perfect! There's two very good audio track, one in DTS and one in 5.1 Dolby Digital. Both of them are loud, clear and with pounding bass during the fight sequences. We get easy to read English subtitles which suffers from some typo errors from time to time but nothing alarming. Disc one also features the very cool trailer which unfortunately sells the film as an action flick which its not. The film is separated in 16 chapters, features animated menus with music and a 4 page booklet. It is very important to note that while the package reads "NTSC 3" it is actually "NTSC 1"!

The second disc feaures more extras but like all Korean DVDs, they aren't subtitled in English which is a shame. We get the bios and interviews with the cast and director. In 'Making of Gangster Wife' there's many featurette, one called 'Gangster in Action' were we see the training Eun-Kyung Shin had to go through, the choreographies she learned and how the fights, stunts and wires moves were done. In 'Comic Situation' we get various outtakes. In 'Etc.' we see how the tatoo in Eun-Kyung Shin's back was done and more behind the scenes. 'Outtakes' features... well more outtakes while 'Promotion Data' takes a look at the press conference and at a photo session with Eun-Kyung Shin. Overall a very good film and DVD edition!

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