General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

My Wife Is a Gangster (조폭 마누라)

My Wife Is a Gangster (조폭 마누라; Revised Romanization Jopog Manura) is a 2001 South Korean action comedy film directed by Cho Jin-gyu and starring Shin Eun-kyung as Cha Eun-jin, a female gang boss who marries an ordinary civil servant to fulfill her dying sister's last wish. It was released in South Korea on September 27, 2001, produced by Hyun Jin Cinema Co., Ltd., and became one of the year's biggest domestic hits, spawning a three-film franchise.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Korean title / release	조폭 마누라; released September 27, 2001 in South Korea¹
Director and writers	Directed by Cho Jin-gyu (조진규); written by Kang Hyo-jin and Kim Moon-sung¹
Lead cast	Shin Eun-kyung (Cha Eun-jin), Park Sang-myeon (Kang Su-il), Ahn Jae-mo, Kwon Yong-woon, Choi Eun-ju¹
Running time	105 minutes per the Korean film databases; some international listings give 107 to 110 minutes¹^•³
Korean admissions	1,419,972 in Seoul; an estimated 5,260,451 nationwide⁴
Franchise	Sequels in 2003 and 2006; both underperformed and ended the series⁴
Audience rating	6.3/10 on IMDb (about 3,700 votes)⁵

Spoilers

Plot

Cha Eun-jin, nicknamed "Mantis," is a living legend in the South Korean underworld, dominating the male-centered gang world with her trademark blades. She was separated from her older sister Yu-jin (Lee Eung-kyung) at an orphanage in childhood; when she finds her again, the sister is terminally ill with stomach cancer and asks Eun-jin to marry before she dies.²^•⁷

Eun-jin's henchmen find Kang Su-il (Park Sang-myeon), a shy, low-ranking civil servant at a neighborhood office who has been through 58 failed blind dates, and select him as the husband because he looks harmless. Su-il, unaware that his bride is a gangster, wakes from his newlywed dream to a household of chores and a wife who refuses to share his bed. Eun-jin's sister further asks her to have a child with Su-il. When Su-il begins to suspect his wife's secret life and decides on divorce, the rival "White Shark" gang chooses that night to move against Eun-jin's organization; in the battle she is seriously injured, and Su-il, visiting her in the hospital, realizes he still loves her.²^•⁷

Production

The film was written by Kang Hyo-jin and Kim Moon-sung and produced by Hyun Jin Cinema Co., Ltd., with Seo Se-won and Lee Soon-yeoul as executive producers and Park Mi-jeong as producer.¹^•² Won Jin served as action director, and the crew included cinematographers Yang Hee-man and Jeon Jo-myeong, editor Park Gok-ji, and composers Jang Dae-sung, Lee Sang-yong, and Lee Jong-jo.⁶ Cineclick Asia handled international sales.¹

The Korean rating was 15+, restricting viewing to ages fifteen and older.¹

Reception and box office

The film was a commercial success. Namu records 1,419,972 admissions in Seoul and an estimated 5,260,451 nationwide.⁴ A retrospective review describes it as the fourth highest-grossing Korean film of 2001.⁸ Its international theatrical gross tracked by Box Office Mojo was $1,211,843, almost all from a Hong Kong release on April 4, 2006 ($1,172,133) plus $39,710 from Taiwan.⁹ On IMDb it holds a 6.3/10 rating.⁵ Empire's DVD review was unfavorable, calling it "a Korean comedy severely lacking in actual comedy" while praising the martial arts scenes.³

Contemporary critics were reportedly surprised by the success of 2001's gangster films, including this one and Friend; one analysis argues that the wave of organized-crime films of that period reflected the collective mentality of the Korean audiences who consumed them.¹⁰ Academic work has also examined the film's gender politics: a 2013 essay in Cultural Studies compared its female fighter with the protagonist of the Thai film Chocolate, asking how her fighting ability and non-feminine behavior rework masculine discourses of authenticity in action cinema, and a Korean feminist-criticism journal article analyzed the film as a reproduction of gender ideology.¹¹^•¹²

Legacy and sequels

The film is credited with establishing the gangster-comedy genre in Korean cinema.¹³ Its opening sequence, in which a gangster's stories about a legendary "Big Brother" end with the reveal that the boss is a woman, introduced a female action lead to many Korean audiences and was later echoed by the opening of The Villainess (2017).¹⁴

Two sequels followed: My Wife Is a Gangster 2: Return of the Legend (2003) and My Wife Is a Gangster 3 (2006). According to Namu, both failed at the box office amid a split in the production team, closing the franchise, and the third film's plot has little connection to the first.⁴ The third installment, a Mainland co-production starring Shu Qi, nonetheless earned about $9 million at the box office.¹⁵ In South Korea the original film is currently available for streaming on wavve, Watcha, and TVING.⁷

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026