Middle management sucks. Per Cheon Myeong-Gwan's gorgeously shot gangster pic Hot Blooded, that maxim holds true in the mafia, too. Mid-level mobster/hotel-manager Hee-su (Jung Woo) is its shining example, a career thug so in debt from gambling that "once you're out, your organs are all mine" — according to his neighborhood loan shark (Yun Je-mun). But how can he break out on his own without losing the little rank he's attained? Is loyalty not worth a dime? Has he aged out of his own future? This movie's message seems to be that greed has really messed everything up! A valid point of view.
Which is why Hee-su decides to traffic in black market vodka. He sees hustling stolen booze as his big break, his final chance to make a name for himself in the port town of Kuam. And you know what? In a different movie, his chances might not be so iffy. Upper mobility in Hot Blooded, however, is going to require a complete lack of morals. This is soul-selling time! Can you be good and rich? Or more specifically, can you become rich and stay good? Rarely, my friend. Rarely.
In fact, what once was the American dream is now the Capitalist nightmare, an international phenomenon in which every transgression can be forgiven if you're making money hand over fist. Drugs, drink, gambling, prostitution, murder... everything is excusable. How you earn your bank is secondary to how much ends up in the kitty. It's a distasteful POV, despite its global sweep, and one which puts no value on a human life. Including that of a childhood friend (Ji Seung-hyeon). All that matters is glamorous independence. Today's reality acknowledges that money's a more effective shield than innocence. Perhap it always has been that way. As George Bernard Shaw once quipped: "Morals are a luxury of the rich."
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