No Tears for the Dead
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Lee Jeong-beom
Written by	Lee Jeong-beom
Produced by	Kim Tae-won
Starring	Jang Dong-gun Kim Min-hee
Cinematography	Lee Mo-gae
Edited by	Nam Na-yeong
Music by	Choi Yong-rak
Distributed by	CJ Entertainment
Release date	June 4, 2014 (2014-06-04)
Running time	116 minutes
Country	South Korea
Languages	Korean English
Box office	US$4,148,991 million[1]

No Tears for the Dead (Korean: 우는 남자; RR: Uneun Namja; literally Crying Man) is a 2014 South Korean action film written and directed by Lee Jeong-beom. The film revolves around a professional hitman (Jang Dong-gun) who is conflicted about killing his last target (Kim Min-hee).^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]}

Plot

At a restaurant in America, professional hitman Gon quietly interacts with a little girl sitting alone at her table. He then leaves and makes his way to the warehouse behind the restaurant where a man named Ha Yun-guk is making a deal with a group of Russian thugs. Gon kills them all and retrieves Yun-guk's laptop. Hearing a sound behind the door, he shoots through it, only to realize it is the little girl who had followed him. The girl dies, traumatizing Gon who gets drunk to forget the incident.

Gon's close friend, Chaoz, and his two Colombian teammates, Alvaro and Juan, take Gon back to their boss, a Chinese-American Triad named Dai-Ban. Alvaro punches Gon awake from his drunken stupor. Gon is to go to South Korea to tie up the loose end - the little girl's mother Choi Mo-gyeong, a risk manager at an investment firm. Gon stabs Alvaro's right hand in retaliation for punching him, triggering a vendetta within Alvaro. Gon then threatens Dai-Ban to never send men to his home again or he will personally kill him.

At Seoul airport, Gon is received by his local contact, Byun. As he studies Mo-gyeong's routine, he learns of her visits to her senile mother in a hospital and watches as she mourns her daughter. Gon feels even more guilty and conflicted about his task. Mo-gyeong is approached by Detective Park from the financial crimes task force. Park reveals that her supervisor, John Lee, is heavily suspected to have ties with organized crimes. Prior to his assassination, Yun-guk had gained access to John Lee's accounts for money laundering and had begun trying to sell them to the Russian Mob. Park asks Mo-gyeong whether her husband left anything that can implicate John Lee.

Due to the stress of losing her daughter, Mo-gyeong eventually ends up in a hospital. However a Chinese-American street assassin under Dai Ban, named Asing, is sent to eliminate her after he successfully murders the other two "loose ends". Gon arrives just in time to save Mo-gyeong, fighting off Asing. Asing escapes briefly but tries again to kill her in a parking lot. Gon intercepts Asing and shoots him dead. As Gon still hasn't completed his assignment, Dai-Ban sends Chaoz, Juan, and Alvaro to South Korea to find him. Chaoz meets a black market American arms dealer in Seoul and quickly kills him and the bodyguard to avoid paying for the firearms. The gang quickly close in on Mo-gyeong's apartment.

In her apartment, Mo-gyeong finds the file in a pen drive. Park's subordinate betrays Park, shoots him, and takes the drive away. Immediately after giving the drive to John, Park's subordinate is killed by Byun. Byun's thugs prepares to kill Mo-gyeong, but Gon warns her with a call. He then intervenes and kills or severely wounds several of them. However, Chaoz and his teammates also arrive at the scene. Juan and Alvaro finish off the remaining thugs. Gon creates a distraction, knocking down Alvaro and engaging in a firefight with both Chaoz and Juan, allowing Mo-gyeong to escape. He promises to reveal the truth about what happened to her daughter. However, Mo-gyeong is captured by a wounded Alvaro.

Gon asks Chaoz to let Mo-gyeong go, but he refuses. Mo-gyeong is taken to the financial building, which is soon surrounded by cops who arrived after receiving a tip from Gon that there is a bomb in the building. Gon ambushes Alvaro and they engage in a fist-fight. Juan arrives to assist Alvaro but accidentally kills him instead as Gon tricks Juan into shooting Alvaro. Juan hunts down Gon in revenge and discovers Gon wounded. Gon manages to kill Juan with an improvised explosive using a microwave. Meanwhile, Mo-gyeong succeeds in preventing the money transfer to John Lee's account. Byun stabs John to death as he is fed up with John's constant abuse of power. At last, Gon battles Chaoz and both get severely wounded. Gon holds Chaoz at gunpoint but spares him, unwilling to kill his close friend.

Byun discovers Mo-gyeong and beats her up. He tries to kill her before she stabs him to death. After a conversation with Chaoz, Gon tells Mo-gyeong she needs to shoot the next person who enters from the lift because it is her daughter's murderer. Gon himself arrives and is shot by Mo-gyeong. Chaoz arrives soon after and snatches the shotgun from Mo-gyeong. He is about to shoot her when a dying Gon asks him not to. Chaoz holds Gon's hand as he dies. Mo-gyeong tries to reach out to Gon via radio after realizing Gon accidentally killed her daughter. A flashback shows Gon's mother, who abandoned him in the states and killed herself early on in the film, telling him not to cry as they would have a good life once they move to America. However, Gon continues to cry - both as a kid and an adult.

Cast

Production

Writer-director Lee Jeong-beom interviewed special forces troops in South Korea and the United States to learn their reality and incorporate it into his screenplay.^[2][8]

To prepare for his role, Jang Dong-gun underwent physical training for four months at a film action school in Seoul and combat training in the United States.^{[9][10][11][12]}

Box office

No Tears for the Dead was released in South Korea on June 4, 2014. Despite its star director and actor, the film underperformed at the box office against Hollywood blockbusters X-Men: Days of Future Past and Edge of Tomorrow. It opened at fifth place on the box office, drawing 600,988 admissions.^[13][14]

References

External links

• Official website (archived) (in Korean)
• Crying Man on Facebook (in Korean)
• No Tears for the Dead at the Korean Movie Database
• No Tears for the Dead at IMDb
• No Tears for the Dead at HanCinema
• No Tears for the Dead at CJ Entertainment