| Director | Na Hong-jin |
|---|---|
| Genre | action film, crime film, thriller film |
| Runtime | 156 min |
| Country | South Korea |
| Budget | $9 million |
| Box office | $15.8 million |
In the northeastern Chinese city of Yanji in Yanbian Prefecture, Gu-nam (Ha Jung-woo), an ethnic Korean, or Joseonjok, toils away as a taxi driver. When not working, he is often found at gambling halls. Gu-nam is now in serious debt. His wife left to work in South Korea and promised to send money back. He has yet to hear from her and is tormented by nightmares of her having an extra-marital affair. To make matters worse, Gu-nam is fired from his job and debt collectors take most of his severance pay.
Local gangster Myun Jung-hak (Kim Yoon-seok), offers him a deal: if Gu-nam goes to South Korea to kill a professor named Kim Seung-hyun, he will get (). Gu-nam accepts and leaves for South Korea by train and a rickety fishing boat, with for expenses.
When Gu-nam arrives in South Korea, he scopes out Seung-hyun's apartment while searching for his wife in his downtime. The night before his boat is due to return to China, Gu-nam witnesses Seung-hyun being ambushed and killed by his driver and two accomplices inside his apartment building's stairwell. After fending off and killing the driver, Gu-nam cuts off Seung-hyun's thumb, as per Jung-hak's contract, but is spotted by Seung-hyun's wife and is forced to flee the police. Upon arriving at the supposed location for the boat back to China, there is no one to pick Gu-nam up, and he realizes he has been set up with no path for return.
It is revealed that a businessman named Kim Tae-won had hired the driver to kill Seung-hyun. Tae-won's henchmen begin capturing and interrogating other Joseonjok in an attempt to find Gu-nam, eventually deducing that Gu-nam was hired by Jung-hak. Tae-won sends his top henchman Choi to China to kill Jung-hak, but Jung-hak defeats Choi's associates and returns with him to Korea to force a meeting with Tae-won. They strike a deal, with Tae-won promising to pay out Jung-hak for finding and killing Gu-nam.
On the run from the police, Gu-nam abducts and interrogates one of Jung-hak's smugglers and arranges a return to China via cargo ship. At the same time, he sees reports on TV that a woman matching the description of his wife had been killed by a man he had investigated as being connected to his wife earlier. Gu-nam hires an outside investigator to check the body and confirm if the woman killed was his wife, and when the investigator cannot tell if it is her, he lies to Gu-nam and arranges to have the woman cremated and the ashes delivered to Gu-nam for cash.
After arriving at the cargo ship, Gu-nam realizes he has been set up again, and narrowly escapes Jung-hak's men. When some of them are arrested and direct the police towards Tae-won, Tae-won sends men to eliminate Jung-hak and his crew, and following a struggle, a wounded Jung-hak escapes and leaves for Tae-won's hideout.
Gu-nam returns to Seung-hyun's apartment and promises his widow to kill the man responsible for her husband's murder. With new information from the widow, Gu-nam searches the driver's apartment and learns Tae-won's name and location after capturing Choi, who had been in contact with the driver, but Gu-nam is then ambushed by a pair of men on his way to the hideout.
At the hideout, Tae-won learns that Jung-hak acquired Seung-hyun's murder contract through a banker named Kim Jung-hwan. Jung-hak ambushes Tae-won and his men, and after a lengthy conflict, the two are mortally wounded. Gu-nam fends off his ambushers and retrieves Jung-hwan's business card off of them before arriving at the hideout and finding a dying Tae-won, who mumbles that he had Seung-hyun killed for having an affair with his wife. Jung-hak passes out at the wheel of his van and crashes at the station entrance, dying from his wounds.
At a restaurant, a wounded Gu-nam meets with the man he hired to identify his wife and is given a box of ashes. After following the business card to Jung-hwan's bank, Gu-nam leaves after seeing Seung-hyun's widow talking to Jung-hwan, deducing that she had hired him to kill her own husband. Both Tae-won and Seung-hyun's wife had put a hit on Seung-hyun; Tae-won for having an affair with his wife, Seung-hyun's wife for cheating on her.
Gu-nam heads to a pier and takes a fisherman hostage and orders him to go to Yanbian. While on the boat, he has a vision of his wife leaving on a train; he succumbs to his wounds en route back to China, and the fisherman dumps Gu-nam's body and the ashes in the water. In an ambiguous mid-credit scene, Gu-nam's wife arrives home by train.