Friend has become a sort of a ′national film text′ boasting an all-time record of over 8 million viewers. The film enables us to understand the Korean people′s current collective entality as well as their political inertia because the film is based on a time devoid of historical context. The line in the film, "We′re friends, right?" clearly shows it is based on pseudo-collectivism. However, the most significant factor in the film′s success is the director′s clever concoction of his personal memories and conventions of the genre. The first part of the film features four boys growing up in the alleys of Busan and is structured as a male coming-of-age film, filled with nostalgic images. The latter half, following the gangster film structure, deals with the disintegration of the male bonding caused by self-serving interests and feuds between criminal organizations. (Joo You-Shin)