A low-level drug dealer conspires with a dangerously ambitious cop to bring down a major cartel's psychotic kingpin in this electric crime thriller.
8 February 1967, South Korea
3 October 1972, South Korea
3 March 1976, Busan, South Korea
25 September 1986, South Korea
7 June 1970, Seoul, Korea
October 30, 2018
It looks great, feels expensive, and therefore occasionally feels like the glossier younger cousin of Drug War that's more handsome but not quite as smart.
June 08, 2018
Believer doesn't add up to much because Lee and Chung essentially tried to improve something that was already perfectly unsettling.
June 07, 2018
The action sequences are unspectacular but effective. "Believer" has a well-told, entertaining story...
June 08, 2018
The growing bodycount makes it that much harder to care, but the story is so hard to swallow that our disinterest almost works to its advantage by the end.
June 06, 2018
Lee Hae-Yeong's gripping retelling of Johnnie To's "Drug War"...stands on its own and is different enough from the original to make it less a clone and more of a genuflection.
June 12, 2018
Believer somewhat subscribes to the character types and recognizable tropes of the genre, the twists feel fresh enough and the tangled webs of drug world conspiracies are riveting enough to keep you on the edge of your seat.
June 07, 2018
...solid mainstream entertainment for those seeking slick production values, exciting action scenes, and an engaging storyline.
June 19, 2018
These gangsters prove, almost without fail, to be homicidal monsters, and director Lee Hae-young (The Silenced) is as likely to celebrate their excess as he is to frame it as a failing.
September 02, 2018
Lee's film is slickly executed and packed with larger-than-life performances that, together, conjure a lurid and gleefully amoral world of crime and corruption.
June 06, 2018
...Believer is a beautifully shot and paced action thriller.
June 08, 2018
Perhaps my love for the original clouded my vision for this version, but damn if I didn't spend more time looking at my watch than I did at the screen.
June 05, 2018
Johnnie To's gritty mainland crime epic "Drug War" (2012) is given a slick and mostly effective South Korean re-tooling in "Believer."

