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I started The Man from Nowhere (2010, written and directed by Jeong-beom Lee) like I start almost every other Asian action-drama-thriller: I was prepared to be a bit bored at first and then be entertained by some amazingly choreographed action and moments of slapstick/dark humour. This movie did indeed follow this pattern, but ultimately didn’t deliver. Why not? One word: tone.

Where the main flaw in tone reveals itself, and rather quickly, is in one of the main cop characters, who was meant to be the comic relief. He was stupid, clumsy, and irritating. I found him to be much more offensive than the over-the-top cuteness of the little girl, So-Mi (Sae-ron Kim) and will go so far as to say that his character single-handedly ruined the film’s tone and made it seem rather amateurish and unfocused. I wanted to be sucked into a dark story with mysterious characters but that was impossible with this buffoon bumping into stuff all the time and constantly saying stupid things.

The crime bosses were pretty ridiculous, too. They yelled unconvincingly and were laughably un-frightening (but with weapons, which are pretty frightening). They were presented like caricatures and made me roll my eyes.

Nowhere’s look is pretty great, though (in addition to Won Bin, pictured above): there is some creative photography and great use of darkness. There is some nice, stylized violence and great shots, notably the one where the man from nowhere himself, Tae-Sik Cha (Won Bin) is being chased and jumps through the window with the camera following him, kind of like the building-jump in The Bourne Ultimatum, but not as good as that amazing one-shot chase scene with the guy jumping off the ledge in The Secret in Their Eyes (there’s a pretty cool making-of video of that scene here). Anyway, I digress. Some of the other action sequences are pretty memorable, too, but I wish Lee had more confidence in his story and characters to not feel the need to inject all of the unnecessary comedic- and cutesy-relief.

This film had something going for it! The premise, although not inherently original, had promise. The lead had experienced some tragedy and is a legitimately a mysterious anti-hero. The drug and organ-trafficking stuff was pretty harrowing, All-in-all, though, this is ultimately a forgettable film with a few memorable moments.