While the film takes a heavy-handed approach to using traditional film noir tropes, it also adds themes of encroaching urbanization, broken family dynamics, and dangerous wish fulfillment.

"Green Fish" is a great film, as it uses the crime thriller as its base to present a character drama with social implications in magnificent fashion.

Unique dark thriller from Seoul.

Chang-dong extracts a sterling performance from Suk-Kyu and finds plenty of depth in the film's more contemplative moments, but the gangland segments never quite attain the same ring of truth.