The aim of this study is to extract the nature of Korean film noir centering on the film 〈The Unjust〉 which handled the issue of legitimacy head-on, in which the Korean people show an extreme interest. As a result, Korean film noir was found to combine the characteristic elements of the Oriental movies like perspectivism, historical experience of Korean society[mostly negative aspects of modernity, such as fetishism, a close relationship between political and business circles, polarization of the poor and the rich, etc.] while accepting the formal, substantial grammar of Hollywood film noir such as the screen composition of gloomy color, criminal conspiracy, and overthrowal of mainstream value, etc.
In addition, as the essential factor in defining the attribute of such Korean film noir, anti-heroism is being found. Ideologically, anit-heroism gives a cynical smile at the contradiction of modernism, but never goes toward Post-marxist transformation and positions itself as a means of aesthetic strategy while leaving itself in a state of failure in the structure of irrationality.
This study patternized the anti-heroism of the film noir as “Passive Failure” and “Active Scarcity”, and the heroes in the movie 〈The Unjust〉 Choi, Cheolki and Ju, Yangeun emerge as having the typicality relevant to individual pattern.
The type of “Passive Failure” has all the essential value such as character, appearance, and ability, etc. needed for its own stereotype, but degrades into a weak being due to an exogenous variable, finally becoming an anti-heroic image ending up with a failure in the realization of self-ideal. The type of “Active Scarcity” lacks some parts of the essential value needed for forming its own stereotype, and it becomes an anti-heroic image causing a deviant problem by actively expressing its intrinsic scarcity outside.
In addition, this study is making clear that an anti-hero comes to be placed in the structure of binary opposition between institutional & private contract, which is the very internal structure of film noir creating an anti-hero into a real anti-hero literally.
At this point, the private contract is the second bargaining pattern which is naturally chosen by a human who cannot but live in a state of surplus pleasure, which is explained as the contract in a state of basic equality for the sake of exchanging interest that is impossible to be satisfied by the first bargaining pattern- institutional contract relations.
The private contract in the film narrative structure becomes a dominant motive which leads an anti-hero in a daily routine into the imperfect state mixed with anxiety and chaos so that the film narrative can be developed into the style of noir. An anti-hero forms the typicality of a hero of film noir, such as humane anguish, contradictory behavior, chaos, and unhappy ending, etc. while hanging between the two opposing contractual relations.
The film 〈The Unjust〉 gives a message as a slight joke that such a world void of such irregularities will never come, even while exposing unfair dealing at a national level. Thus, it might be safe to say that the overall image and nature of the film noir such as an attitude of giving a cynical smile at the mainstream value but resisting wrath, aesthetics of self-destruction, and mix of ethics and non-ethics are derived from the interaction between anti-heroism and structure of binary opposition.