The City of Violence 2006

Wang-jae, an ex-gangster, chases a group of punks into an alley and is fatally stabbed.

Nearly twenty years pass and four childhood friends reunite at Wang-jae’s funeral: Tae-su, Pil-ho, Seok-hwan, and Dong-hwan.

Each has carved out a different path: Tae-su became a Seoul detective; Pil-ho took over Wang-jae’s business; Seok-hwan works as a debt collector, while his older brother Dong-hwan struggles as a maths professor.

After the funeral, Tae-su decides to investigate the murder within a week before he would return to his job in Seoul.

Meanwhile, Seok-hwan decides to find and kill Wang-jae’s murderers. While investigating, Tae-su is attacked by youth gangs, where he barely escapes with Seok-hwan’s unexpected arrival. They decide to work together.

After hunting the gangs, they discover Wang-jae’s death was not a random mindless attack, but a planned murder. The revelation leads them to Dong-hwan, who confesses that Pil-ho was behind the plan after Wang-jae disapproved Pil-ho’s plans to turn their city into a tourist district. After strangers tried to kill him as part of tying up Pil-ho’s loose ends, Wang-jae’s young murderer agrees to testify against Pil-ho.

A killer douses the young murderer in gasoline and sets him on fire. Later, Pil-ho badly thrashes Tae-su and also targets to finish Seok-hwan, Dong-hwan and their mother in an accident, but Seok-hwan survives. After Dong-hwan and his mother’s funeral, Seok-hwan and Wang-jae’s widow leave the funeral house and see Tae-su waiting outside. Tae-su persuades Wang-jae’s widow into revealing information on Pil-ho’s whereabouts. Tae-su and Seok-hwan storm Pil-ho’s fortress, where they fight their way through swarms of armed cooks until the banquet room.

Meanwhile, Pil-ho kills the Seoul president, which prompts all guests to leave. Tae-su and Seok-hwan confront Pil-ho, who is along with his four elite guards in the room. A fight ensues where Tae-su and Seok-hwan manage to defeat Pil-ho’s elite guards and set to take on Pil-ho, who takes them by surprise by attacking Seok-hwan. Pil-ho turns and stabs Tae-su, but Seok-hwan later finishes Pil-ho with a katana. As Tae-su bleeds to death, an exhausted Seok-hwan notices the carnage that he and Tae-su had created and sighs heavily.