General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

No. 3 (넘버 3)

No. 3 (넘버 3) is a 1997 South Korean gangster black comedy directed and written by Song Neung-han (송능한) in his feature directorial debut, starring Han Suk-kyu, Choi Min-sik, Lee Mi-yeon, and Song Kang-ho. It was released in South Korea on August 2, 1997, produced by Free Cinema and distributed by Cinema Service.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Release	August 2, 1997, South Korea; produced by Free Cinema, distributed by Cinema Service²
Director	Song Neung-han, his directorial debut after a screenwriting career that included Taebaek Mountains³
Lead cast	Han Suk-kyu (Tae-ju), Choi Min-sik (prosecutor Ma Dong-pal), Lee Mi-yeon (Hyun-ji), Song Kang-ho (Jo-pil), Park Sang-myun (Jae-chul)¹
Genre	Black comedy, crime, action; rated for adults only (청소년 관람불가)¹
Awards	Blue Dragon Awards 1997: Best New Director and Best Screenplay (Song Neung-han), Best Supporting Actor (Song Kang-ho); Daejong Film Awards 1997: Best New Actor; Paeksang Arts Awards 1998: Best Screenplay⁴
Admissions	297,617 per Cine21; the Namu wiki entry records 307,617 as the final Seoul figure²^•⁵

Spoilers

Plot

Tae-ju (Han Suk-kyu) is a member of the Do-gang crime family. After shielding the boss, Kang Do-sik (Ahn Suk-hwan), during an internal coup, he is rewarded with the position of No. 3 in the organization, which puts him in a rivalry with the simple-minded and violent No. 2, Jae-chul (Park Sang-myun), nicknamed "Ashtray" for his weapon of choice.¹ Tae-ju, however, wants to be No. 1, and he studies foreign languages to prepare the organization for internationalization.²

His ambitions are complicated from several directions. He takes over the organization's most important job, managing a hotel, but the infamous prosecutor Ma Dong-pal (Choi Min-sik) becomes an obstacle, and his attempts to win the prosecutor over fail.⁴ His wife Hyun-ji (Lee Mi-yeon), a former hostess who dreams of an elegant life, takes poetry lessons from a third-rate poet named Rimbaud (Park Kwang-jung) and begins an affair with him; the boss's wife Ji-na (Bang Eun-hee) later schemes to end the relationship.¹ Meanwhile Jo-pil (Song Kang-ho), who five years earlier failed to kill the Do-gang boss, trains three henchmen in the mountains and forms the Bulsa Family to take revenge.¹

The story culminates at a room salon (Korean hostess bar for private entertaining) where the Do-gang and a Japanese organization meet. A dispute over the Dokdo issue splits the two groups, and when Jae-chul's carelessly thrown ashtray strikes the Japanese boss, war breaks out between them. The prosecutor Ma, believed dead, storms into the chaos; it emerges that Tae-ju, who wanted to live like a proper human being, had conspired with him. In a 2001 coda, Hyun-ji visits the imprisoned Tae-ju with their son, and the two plan to emigrate together after his release.¹

Production and background

Song Neung-han began his career as a screenwriter for film and television drama, with credits including Taebaek Mountains, and No. 3 was his first film as director.³^•⁶ Time Out reports that he based the story on his encounters with a real-life gang boss.³ The film was shot by Park Seung-bae, edited by Park Gok-ji, with music by Cho Dong-ik.²

The cast gathered performers who would become leading figures of Korean cinema. Han Suk-kyu was at the height of his popularity in 1997, appearing that year in Green Fish, No. 3, and The Contact; Choi Min-sik and Song Kang-ho appear in early supporting roles that predate their later stardom.⁷^•⁸

Reception and legacy

The film swept new-talent honors at the 1997 Blue Dragon Awards, where Song Neung-han won Best New Director and Best Screenplay and Song Kang-ho won Best Supporting Actor, and Song Kang-ho also took Best New Actor at the 1997 Daejong Film Awards; the Paeksang Arts Awards gave it Best Screenplay in 1998.⁴^•⁹

Commercially it drew roughly 300,000 admissions in Seoul, a solid but not blockbuster result; one retrospective account notes that, judged purely on box office, it counted as a relative disappointment among Han Suk-kyu's films of that period.²^•⁵

Critical assessments have diverged. Time Out called it "a brilliantly inventive, off-the-wall satire on the gangster mentality," praising its razor-sharp script and spectacular visual style.³^•⁶ Reviewers at Eye for Film and Far East Films found it instead long-winded and muddled, with a tone that lurches between broad black comedy and violent thriller, though both noted the interest of seeing Han Suk-kyu, Choi Min-sik, and Song Kang-ho in early roles.¹⁰^•¹¹

A 2026 KBS retrospective describes No. 3 as a forerunner of the gangster comedies that poured out of Korean cinema from the 2000s, such as My Wife Is a Gangster and Kick the Moon, while arguing that its distinct value lies in using humor to satirize not just gangsters and crime but Korean society as a whole, including power, nationalism, economic anxiety, and corruption.¹²^•⁸ The film was programmed in the "Relentless Invention: New Korean Cinema, 1996–2003" series at Film at Lincoln Center in 2019.⁸

Notes on versions

Sources disagree on the running time: the Korean Film Archive and Cine21 list 104 minutes, Film at Lincoln Center and blu-ray.com list 108 minutes, and some listings give 109 minutes or 1 hour 49 minutes.¹^•⁸^•¹³ The film is in Korean, with Japanese also listed among its languages.¹⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1990s films › Crime comedies and capers

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

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