It used to be that Hong Kong was the biggest Asian market for hardcore action and martial-arts flicks, but Korea has begun, in recent years, to dip it's toe into these financially lucrative genres.

The City Of Violence is the latest from director Ryoo Seung-Wan (Die Or Bad, Arahan, No Blood, No
Tears). Seung-Wan also stars as Seok-Hwan, who learns that former high-school friend Wang-Jae (Kil-Kang Ahn) has been brutally murdered by a pack of street punks. Hell-bent on finding those responsible and making them pay, Seok teams up with another adolescent acquaintance, a Seoul police officer named Tae-Su (the film's nimble fight choreographer Jung Doo Hong), and the two quickly learn that one of their former childhood friends, Pil-Ho (Le Beum-Soo), has become a backstabbing crime lord who orchestrated the murder of Wang in order to accelerate his own ascension up the ranks of his gangster syndicate. Once Pil-Ho starts making their grudge really personal, Seok-Hwan and Tae-Su decide to take the battle to their mutual enemy's front door.

Seung-Wan, like Quentin Tarantino, isn't afraid to splatter all of his filmmaking influences across the screen like the fans of arterial blood sprayed across the walls during the film's violent action sequences. The slo-mo ballets of Sam Peckinpah, the technical wizardry of Brian De Palma (split-screens, split diopters, long takes, graphic bloodletting), the iconic shot framing of Sergio Leone...it's a hodgepodge of stylistic antecedents thrown into the mix, and the directorial virtuosity on display is one of the film's chief pleasures. Not that the film's plot is terrible or anything, but it's a pretty basic revenge movie framework on which Seung-Wan stretches his elaborately-choreographed mayhem. It all builds to a sustained climax with Seok-Hwan and Tae-Su assaulting Pil-Ho's heavily-fortified restaurant HQ that compares favorably to the epic slaughter of Tarantino's "House Of Blue Leaves" chapter in Kill Bill Volume One.

The Weinstein Company's recently-created "Dragon Dynasty" label has to be treasured by fans of Asian action films for resurrecting many classic films previously only available in the U.S. in crummy, edited, poorly-dubbed versions, as well as porting over many new-wave features by fresh young talents like director Seung-Wan and action star Tony Jaa (Ong Bak, The Protector). The City Of Violence never reinvents the wheel, but it's fast, slick, and consistently entertaining for fans of the increasingly-popular Asian action market, and this overstuffed "ultimate edition" DVD will sate even the most gluttonous of appetites.

DVD Presentation
The film's 2:35.1 aspect ratio is reproduced in a gorgeous anamorphic transfer that has virtually no print damage or technical flaws on display. On the audio side, we get the film's original Korean language track in both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 versions, as well as an English 5.1 dub. The DTS track is, naturally, the preferred one for those with the proper equipment to access it, with all of the "hi-yahhh!"s, gunshots, punches and the neo-Morricone soundtrack replicated with excellent, subwoofer-rattling clarity. Just for the film presentation alone, this is a near-perfect showcase disc.

Extras
Disc one gives us an audio commentary with director Ryoo Seung-Wan (in subtitled Korean), wherein he points out homages to other Korean and Hong Kong action films, his American filmmaking influences like Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorsese, and other topics. This is an enjoyable, brisk track. We also get the film's Korean teaser (1:31) and theatrical (2:32)  trailers in non-anamorphic 2:35.1, plus an American ad (1:41) for this here DVD. Lastly, there's a 2:44 blooper reel that mainly consists of raw footage featuring malfunctioning props and inappropriate giggling during tense/violent moments. Disc two offers an insanely comprehensive look at the film's production, grouped into three submenus:   Pre-Production offers the following featurettes:

•  The Evolution Of Action (12:21) has director/star Seung-Wan discussing his previous work and how he tried to top himself with Violence.
• Creating Emotive Action (8:37) offers more of the same, with Seung-Wan riffing on his influences.
• City Of Violence: Development And Pre-Production (9:46) discusses the writing of the screenplay.
• The Art Of War: Conceptual Designs (6:36) has production designer Ju Hwa-Seong discussing how he purposely created the restaurant set for the film's epic final confrontation in four distinct sections, so as to keep the audience from getting bored with a monotonous visual setting for the lengthy fight scenes that climax the picture.
• Battle Plans: Technical Training And Film Tests (6:16) has cinematographer Kim Young-Cheul discussing the decision to shoot the movie on 16 MM film instead of with HD video cameras, despite the film's tight budget, because it simply looked better and registered the action choreography more smoothly.

• Performance Management: Interviews With The Cast (11:15) has Seung-Wan, Doo Hong, and Beum-Soo talking about their character motivations and such.
• Blow-By-Blow: A Behind-The-Scenes Exploration Of The Action Scenes (35:06) offers a lot of raw production footage involving the film's elaborate and dangerous stunt work, with plenty of on-set injuries depicted.
• Two Against The Rest: Making-Of (47:45) is an overlong, more traditional talking-head segment.
• A Walk On The Wild Side (42:31) is more of the same, even replicating some of the same behind-the-scenes footage and interview soundbites.
• Council Of War: A Commentary On Action Sequences (16:46) plays as a highlights reel with the film's biggest brawls, with commentary by fight choreographer Jung Doo-Hong.

• Deleted And Alternate Scenes (8:06 total) are comprised mainly of trims to existing scenes in the film, all of which were wisely excised to maintain the film's kinetic pace (plus a puzzling alternate ending that kind of blows). These offer optional commentary by director Ryoo Seung-Wan.
• Behind-The-Scenes At The Venice Film Festival (3:48) is your typical footage of the film's director, producer and cast pimping their product on the film festival circuit.
• Designer Action: Development Of The Artwork (3:55) has marketing supervisor Jo Young-Ji discussing the difficulty in finding a poster campaign to sell the film to Korean audiences, despite a pair of leads who aren't very well-known in their native country. She ended up accentuating "iconic" posing and hyping up the film's action elements.

Whew! If there's one major problem with the mountain of extras on display here, it's that a lot of production footage and interview anecdotes get repeated from featurette to featurette. And, as such, watching all of these in one gulp (as I did for this assignment) is eventually a bit numbing. All of this stuff is worthy of a look for fans of the film or Asian action filmmaking in general, but you'd be wise to space them out over the course of a few days.

The Bottom Line
Sleek, violent, and full of flamboyant stylistic flourishes, The City Of Violence offers up some tasty cinematic vengeance.