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Only God Forgives
Julian, who runs a Thai boxing club as a front organization for his family's drug smuggling operation, is forced by his mother Crystal to find and kill the individual responsible for his brother's recent death.
2013 · Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn · 89 min · Drama · Thriller · Crime · Screenplay in the scene database · 34 frames
Tagline
Time to meet the Devil.
Plot
Julian and Billy are brothers and American expatriates, who run a Muay Thai boxing club in Bangkok as a front for their drug dealing operations. One night, Billy goes looking for sex and visits a brothel, saying he wants a 14-year-old girl, but the brothel-keeper refuses. Enraged, Billy attacks him with a wine bottle and breaks into the room where the prostitutes are on display before attacking one of them. At another location, Billy violently assaults and kills an underage prostitute before being cornered by Thai police. Chang, who is a vigilante-type police lieutenant, brings the girl's father Choi to identify his daughter's body and allows Choi to beat Billy to death. Afterward, Chang severs Choi's right forearm with his sword as punishment for allowing his daughter to be a prostitute in the first place.
Upon discovering Billy's death, Julian and his crew confront Choi, but Julian spares his life after hearing his version of the facts. Crystal, who is Julian and Billy's mother and boss of their family's criminal operations, arrives in Bangkok and demands that Julian kill the man responsible for his brother's death. Julian refuses, ultimately believing that Choi's revenge was justified. Crystal successfully orders Choi to be killed by a fighter in her sons' gym, upon which she learns of Chang's involvement in Billy's death. Crystal meets with a rival drug dealer named Byron and offers to cut him into her drug operation in exchange for a hit on Chang.
Meanwhile, Chang investigates Choi's murder and correctly concludes that Julian is not the killer. That evening, Julian brings Mai, a prostitute posing as his girlfriend, to meet Crystal at a restaurant. Crystal sees through the ruse, where she viciously insults Mai and belittles Julian's sexual dysfunction, demeaning him in comparison to his dead brother.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Nicolas Winding Refn
- Cinematography: Larry Smith
- Edited by: Matthew Newman
- Music: Cliff Martinez
- Production design: Beth Mickle
- Produced by: Lene Børglum, Sidonie Dumas, Vincent Maraval, Jessica Ask
Cast
- Ryan Gosling as Julian
- Kristin Scott Thomas as Crystal
- Vithaya Pansringarm as Chang
- Rhatha Phongam as Mai
- Gordon Brown as Gordon
- Tom Burke as Billy
- Byron Gibson as Byron
- Sahajak Boonthanakit as Kim
- Charlie Ruedpokanon as Daeng
- Wannisa Peungpa as Kanita
Production
- Country: Denmark, France, Sweden, United States of America
- Language: English, Thai
- Studios: Wild Bunch, Gaumont, Space Rocket Nation, Motel Movies
- Budget: $4,800,000
- Box office: $10,300,000
- Themes: bangkok, thailand, surrealism, punishment, suicidal, police officer, neon light, aggressive, neo-noir, drug trafficker, thai boxing
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