Geomeun meori

One doesn't come across an early 60's South Korean yakuza picture every day, so your guess is as good as mine how representative 'Black Hair' is of its era and its national cinema.

Shot in black & white and 'scope, 'Black Hair' paints a squalid picture of sixties Seoul that I'm surprised was ever passed by the South Korean censor. Unfortunately, once the novelty has warn off, the scenes involving syringes, flick-knives and broken bottles become strangely monotonous and uninvolving, not helped by an annoyingly loud score that grows mawkishly sentimental as the dialogue gets more and more purple.

Most of the cast end up dying messily but I didn't care much, since the film tended to sag whenever the handsome Jeong-suk Moon in the title role as the ripe, streetwise, if slightly faded heroine was offscreen. Fortunately that doesn't happen too often and she amply justifies the price of admission. She and director Man-hui Lee later married.