Best movies like A Bittersweet Life

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The City of Violence (2006)

Plot Summary:

Tae-su, a detective fighting organized crime, returns to his hometown for his high school friend Wang-jae's funeral. There, he meets his old friends Pil-ho, Dong-hwan and Seok-hwan and they reminisce. Suspecting something fishy about Wang-jae's death, Tae-su and Seok-hwan start investigating it, each in his own way. Their investigations lead to a land development project that Pil-ho is directing.

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A Company Man (2012)

Plot Summary:

A contract killing organization is managed like a normal company. Hyung-do who regards killing as nothing more than repetitious routine is working for this company. A man loyal to his company and accepted as the firm’s best killer, Hyung-do one day starts feeling doubts about his job and decides to quit his job for a woman he is in love with. Instantly, he is under the threat of being hunted down by his former colleagues.

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Fireworks (1997)

Plot Summary:

A police officer leaves the force in the face of harrowing personal and professional difficulties. Spiraling into a depression, he makes questionable decisions.

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Inside Men (2015)

Plot Summary:

LEE Kang-hee, an editorialist of the influential conservative newspaper puts a congressman, JANG Pil-woo to the position of a leading candidate for President using the power of the press. Behind this, there was his secret deal with the paper’s biggest sponsor. AHN Sang-goo, a political henchman who supported LEE and JANG gets his hand cut as the price when he gets caught pocketing the record on the sponsor’s slush fund. WOO Jang-hoon, an ambitious prosecutor starts to investigate the relationship with JANG and the sponsor believing it is the only chance he can make it to the top. While getting down to the grass roots on the case, WOO meets AHN who has been deliberately planning his revenge. Now the war among the one blind for power, the one hell bent for vengeance, and the one eager for success starts.

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Outrage (2010)

Plot Summary:

The story begins with Sekiuchi, boss of the Sannokai, a huge organized crime syndicate controlling the entire Kanto region, issuing a stern warning to his lieutenant Kato and right-hand man Ikemoto, head of the Ikemoto-gumi. Kato orders Ikemoto to bring the unassociated Murase-gumi gang in line, and he immediately passes the task on to his subordinate Otomo, who runs his own crew. The tricky jobs that no-one wants to do always end up in Otomo’s lap.

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A Better Tomorrow (2010)

Plot Summary:

A Korean remake of the John Woo Classic. One brother is a criminal. One brother is a cop. Both will fight to the death.

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Violent Cop (1989)

Plot Summary:

Detective Azuma is a Dirty-Harry style rogue cop who often uses violence and unethical methods to get results.

Similar in 78%

No Tears for the Dead (2014)

Plot Summary:

Abandoned by his mother shortly after immigrating to America, Gon is raised by the mafia and grows up to become a cold-blooded hitman. Though usually flawless in taking out his targets, Gon makes a terrible mistake of killing an innocent young girl. Swamped by feelings of regret, guilt and shame, Gon no longer wants to be a hitman, but his boss gives him one last mission. So Gon finds himself in Korea, the land of the mother that abandoned him, on the trail of his last target. But in bitter irony, that target is Mo-gyeong, the mother of the dead child.

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Soo: Revenge for a Twisted Fate (2007)

Plot Summary:

Tae-soo tries to steal from a gang. The gang catches Tae-Soo's brother, Tae-Jin, instead. The incident causes the brothers to separate. Tae-Soo becomes a mob fixer and an assassin. Tae-Jin becomes a police detective. When a call brings the brothers together, they get ready for brotherly bonding, but Tae-Jin gets killed. Tae-Soo decides to get revenge on his brother's killer.

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Toro (2016)

Plot Summary:

Toro (Spanish for "Bull") is a young con man and the right hand of Romano, a powerful mob boss in Torremolinos, Málaga (Andalusia, south to Spain). After Toro decides to leave Romano to get a life free of crime, his last sting fails, resulting one of his brothers dead and he sent to jail. Five years later, Romano realizes that López, Toro's older brother, is robbing him money from his tourism business and he orders to kidnap Diana, López's little daughter, until this one get back the money. Without options, López visits Toro, now a touristic driver with the third grade prison close to get the parole, who only wants to be free to marry his girlfriend Estrella. When Toro accepts to help López and both meet Romano looking for a solution, Toro ends attacking Romano's men and fleeing with Diana, trying to escape from Romano's revenge. But Romano starts a ruthless searching for they three, meanwhile Toro counts the hours to back the prison according to the third grade.

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A Dirty Carnival (2006)

Plot Summary:

Byung-du is a 29-year-old career criminal, working for the middle-rank enforcer Sang-chul. Burdened with a terminally ill mother and taking care of younger siblings, Byung-du is feeling financial pressure as a substitute patriarch. When the big boss President Hwang is cornered by a corrupt prosecutor, Byung-du volunteers for a whack job and wins the big man's trust.

Similar in 76%

Vengeance (2009)

Plot Summary:

A French chef swears revenge after a violent attack on his daughter's family in Hong Kong, during which her husband and her two children are murdered. To help him find the killers, he hires three local hit-men working for the mafia.

Similar in 86%

Infernal Affairs III (2003)

Plot Summary:

Infernal Affairs III is a 2003 Hong Kong crime thriller film directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak. It is the third installment in the Infernal Affairs film series, and is both a sequel and a semi-prequel to the original film, as it intercuts events before and after the events in the original.

Similar in 82%

A Better Tomorrow (1986)

Plot Summary:

A reforming ex-gangster tries to reconcile with his estranged policeman brother, but the ties to his former gang are difficult to break.

Similar in 81%

Fulltime Killer (2001)

Plot Summary:

Professional assassin O has resided in an isolated world of killing and loneliness. But his life begins to change once he meets the innocent Chin; hired to clean O's apartment. However, soon the flamboyent and reckless Tok enters Chin's life with a mission--to unveil O's identity and usurp his place as the number one sharp-shooting assassin in the game.

Similar in 87%

Exiled (2006)

Plot Summary:

A friendship is formed between an ex-gangster, and two groups of hitmen - those who want to protect him and those who were sent to kill him.

Similar in 86%

New World (2013)

Plot Summary:

An undercover cop has his loyalties tested when the boss of the corporate gang he's spent years infiltrating dies.

Similar in 80%

The Yellow Sea (2010)

Plot Summary:

The region where the borders of North Korea, China, and Russia come together, forms a sort of modern day wild west, where more than half of the population relies on illegal activity in order to survive. In Yanbian, on the Chinese side of the border, Gu-nam wiles away his days driving a cab and spends his nights getting drunk and gambling. His wife went to Seoul to work and send back money, but it’s been months since he has heard from her. When local crime lord Myun offers to erase Gu-nam’s debts in exchange for a contract killing in Seoul, Gu-nam reluctantly accepts.

Similar in 85%

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)

Plot Summary:

This is the story of Ryu, a deaf man, and his sister, who requires a kidney transplant. Ryu's boss, Park, has just laid him off, and in order to afford the transplant, Ryu and his girlfriend develop a plan to kidnap Park's daughter. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.

Similar in 88%

The Killer (1989)

Plot Summary:

Mob assassin Jeffrey is no ordinary hired gun; the best in his business, he views his chosen profession as a calling rather than simply a job. So, when beautiful nightclub chanteuse Jennie is blinded in the crossfire of his most recent hit, Jeffrey chooses to retire after one last job to pay for his unintended victim's sight-restoring operation. But when Jeffrey is double-crossed, he reluctantly joins forces with a rogue policeman to make things right.

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Only God Forgives (2013)

Plot Summary:

Julian, who runs a Thai boxing club as a front organization for his family's drug smuggling operation, is forced by his mother Jenna to find and kill the individual responsible for his brother's recent death.

Similar in 79%

Drive (2011)

Plot Summary:

A Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman for criminals discovers that a contract has been put on him after a heist gone wrong.

Similar in 78%

The Raid 2 (2014)

Plot Summary:

After fighting his way through an apartment building populated by an army of dangerous criminals and escaping with his life, SWAT team member Rama goes undercover, joining a powerful Indonesian crime syndicate to protect his family and uncover corrupt members of his own force.

Similar in 77%

The Man from Nowhere (2010)

Plot Summary:

His only friend called him 'the man from nowhere'... Taesik, a former special agent becomes a loner after losing his wife in a miserable accident and lives a bitter life running a pawnshop. He only has a few customers and a friend named Somi, a little girl next door. As Taesik spends more and more time with Somi, he gets attached to her. Then Somi is kidnapped by a gang, and as Taesik tries to save Somi by becoming deeply associated with the gang his mysterious past is revealed.

Similar in 75%

The Raid (2011)

Plot Summary:

Deep in the heart of Jakarta's slums lies an impenetrable safe house for the world's most dangerous killers and gangsters. Until now, the run-down apartment block has been considered untouchable to even the bravest of police. Cloaked under the cover of pre-dawn darkness and silence, an elite swat team is tasked with raiding the safe house in order to take down the notorious drug lord that runs it. But when a chance encounter with a spotter blows their cover and news of their assault reaches the drug lord, the building's lights are cut and all the exits blocked. Stranded on the sixth floor with no way out, the unit must fight their way through the city's worst to survive their mission. Starring Indonesian martial arts sensation Iko Uwais.

Similar in 88%

Collateral (2004)

Plot Summary:

Cab driver Max picks up a man who offers him $600 to drive him around. But the promise of easy money sours when Max realizes his fare is an assassin.

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Infernal Affairs (2002)

Plot Summary:

Chan Wing Yan, a young police officer, has been sent undercover as a mole in the local mafia. Lau Kin Ming, a young mafia member, infiltrates the police force. Years later, their older counterparts, Chen Wing Yan and Inspector Lau Kin Ming, respectively, race against time to expose the mole within their midst.

Similar in 90%

I Saw the Devil (2010)

Plot Summary:

Kyung-chul is a dangerous psychopath who kills for pleasure. He has committed infernal serial murders in diabolic ways that one cannot even imagine and his victims range from young women to even children. The police have chased him for a long time, but were unable to catch him. One day, Joo-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief becomes his prey and is found dead in a horrific state. Her fiance Soo-hyun, a top secret agent, decides to track down the murderer himself. He promises himself that he will do everything in his power to take bloody vengeance against the killer, even if it means that he must become a monster himself to get this monstrous and inhumane killer.

Similar in 89%

A History of Violence (2005)

Plot Summary:

An average family is thrust into the spotlight after the father commits a seemingly self-defense murder at his diner.

Similar in 83%

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

Plot Summary:

John Wick is forced out of retirement by a former associate looking to seize control of a shadowy international assassins’ guild. Bound by a blood oath to aid him, Wick travels to Rome and does battle against some of the world’s most dangerous killers.