PawnMovies like Pawn
- Key Features:
- Debt collection, Guardian, Child in peril, Immigration, Redemption, Unexpected bond, Character arc, Kindness, Moral dilemma, Social issues, Poverty, Family
- Tone:
- serious, earnest
- Target Audience:
- Drama viewers, Fans of heartwarming stories, Viewers interested in social issues, Those who enjoy character-driven narratives
- Emotional Arc:
- Concern → Empathy → Hope
Pawn

A debt collector who looks intimidating, but actually has a warm heart, ends up becoming the guardian of a child, who has been left behind as collateral by her illegal immigrant mother.
Pawn
Sang-hoon is a lowlife gangster, a debt collector exercising thuggish ways to collect his money. The recipient of nothing but anger since his childhood, he expresses himself through violence. When he finally encounters someone who can stand up to him, feisty school-girl Yoon-hee they become unlikely friends.

A child abandoned in a subway coin locker is sold to a ruthless and calculating loan shark and gangster boss dubbed Mother, who runs an organ-harvesting ring in Incheon’s Chinatown. Named Il-Young, the baby girl grows into Mother’s loyal right-hand enforcer and is groomed to be her eventual successor. But when Il-Young’s loyalty to Mother wavers, the clash between the two unleashes a merciless tidal wave of blood-soaked retribution and strife.

A loan shark is forced to reconsider his violent lifestyle after the arrival of a mysterious woman claiming to be his long-lost mother.

Sang-hyun is always struggling from debt, and Dong-soo works at a baby box facility. On a rainy night, they steal the baby Woo-sung, who was left in the baby box, to sell him at a good price. Meanwhile, detectives were watching, and they quietly track them down to capture the crucial evidence.

A classically-trained martial artist goes to work as a debt collector for the mob. The job seems easy enough, until one “client” pulls him into a situation deeper than could ever be expected.

A debt collector strikes a deal with a debt-ridden woman struggling to care for her ailing father: he will take care of her bills if she agrees to date him.

Fresh out of prison, a former debt collector working for a gangland boss is told he has a terminal brain tumour. In an attempt to atone for his past he rescues a young girl from trafficking, forcing him into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with his boss.

A woman's past as a convict follows her everywhere and because of this she doesn't open up to others. But then she strikes up a friendship with a broken child who has suffered from domestic violence and decides to save the girl from the cruel world. A man who holds feelings for the woman, tries to protect her in his own way.

A struggling restaurant owner, caring for his sick mom, finds a bag of cash in a sauna locker, while a customs officer gets into trouble when his girlfriend runs off with money he borrowed from a loan shark.

An unscrupulous debt collector who is a prominent member of the Moscow elite has just a few hours to refute an accusation that might cost him his job and his life.

Han, a Filipino-Korean boxer hits the final punch against his opponent at an illegal game and returns home with a few dollars to pay for his mother's surgery.

A woman, fired from a financial corporation during the Asia crisis, returns home with no money. However, she finds a box with a fortune in front of her door, and decides to keep it. However, the people that left it there soon want it back.

Rahim is in prison because of a debt he was unable to repay. During a two-day leave, he tries to convince his creditor to withdraw his complaint against the payment of part of the sum. But things don't go as planned. Is he truly a hero?

After 8-year-old So-won narrowly survives a brutal sexual assault, her family labors to help her heal while coping with their own rage and grief.

Kyung-jin, a police officer who finds herself chasing down a suspected bag-snatcher on her day off. However, the man she catches turns out to be Myungwoo, a passer-by who was himself trying to apprehend the real criminal.

Detective Nam-soon goes undercover with her partner Detective Ahn to investigate the counterfeit money. She discovers that one loyal henchman, Sad Eyes, a beautiful swordsman with a pale, blank face, is related to the truth. Nam-soon and Sad Eyes confront each other in a series of duels and become confused between love and obligation to duty.

Marino Pacileo has a soft spot for gambling. When he discovers that Lila's father, the young Chinese girl that he is in love with cannot pay a debt, the gambler steals money from the jail he is in to help the love of his life.

Mimmo is a construction worker who only wants to live in peace, but has to work as a debt collector for his uncle. Everything changes when he meets Tanya, a beautiful, street-smart girl who shares his dream.

All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.

A criminal, a bank clerk and a police officer find their destinies entwined when a loan shark gets assaulted after having withdrawn $10 million from the bank in the midst of the world financial crisis.

When a wife becomes the breadwinner of her family after her husband loses his job, adultery becomes part of her life.

A woman's child is kidnapped and killed after paying the ransom. 15 years later, a mysterious figure is seen visiting the site of killing and another kidnapping occurs using the same methods. The woman teams up with a detective to catch the killer once and for all.

A debt collector receives a call from a woman who is kidnapped by an unknown gang. He thinks it is a joke but soon, he realises that it is not a prank.

Hong Kong 1997, where young people dream of love and death, suicide and murder. Moon is a cynical young debt collector, smitten by Ping, a young woman dying of kidney disease. A suicide note from a student they don't know ends up intertwining their fates.

An idealistic policeman must bring down his estranged older brother, now a powerful gangster in a South Korean port city.

Only one week left until South Korea will go under sovereign default. Han Shi-hyun is a leader of the monetary policy team at the Bank of Korea. and is assigned to a crisis team.

David Cuevas is a family man who works as a gangland tax collector for high ranking Los Angeles gang members. He makes collections across the city with his partner Creeper making sure people pay up or will see retaliation. An old threat returns to Los Angeles that puts everything David loves in harm’s way.

These intertwining stories about romance and separation follow a firefighter who can't find the right time to propose, a shy theme park worker who falls for an artist, an estranged mother and son, and a man seeking to regain his lost love.

Jae-Young is an amateur prostitute who sleeps with men while her best friend Yeo-Jin "manages" her, fixing dates, taking care of the money, and making sure the coast is clear. When Jae-Young falls in love with one of those men, she suppresses her feelings towards him in respect of her friend who's jealous.

Threatened by creditors, a newly unemployed man agrees to work for a debt collector, but soon discovers his deal with the devil has unexpected costs.

After his father’s death, poor Berhudar is left dealing with his father’s huge debt to the mob. In one of his many attempts to find a way out of his problem, he meets Ezel. He hopes she will help him get out of the mess he is in. Little does he know the she’s dealing with a very similar trouble...

The son of a North Korean spy decides to follow in his father's footsteps to protect his little sister.

Jin-a, a young prostitute, moves into a seaside motel called the Birdcage Inn, run by a dysfunctional family. Struggling with her circumstances and the family's treatment, she forms an unlikely bond with the daughter, Hye-mi. As they navigate love, betrayal, and personal growth, their friendship ultimately leads to a deeper understanding and a chance for redemption.

A father is without the means to pay for his daughter's medical treatment. As a last resort, he partners with a greedy co-worker to rob a casino. When things go awry they're forced to hijack a city bus.

At the age of 40, Leila has spent her entire life caring for her parents and four brothers. A family that is constantly arguing and under pressure from various debts in the face of sanctions against Iran. While her brothers are struggling to make ends meet, Leila makes a plan.

An abandoned child steals to survive and has problems when he decides to steal from the priest who helps him.

A young assassin is sent to kill a retired mob boss. But things get complicated when she begins to like him.

A pair of debt collectors are thrust into an explosively dangerous situation, chasing down various lowlifes while also evading a vengeful kingpin.

A wanna-be concert pianist spends his days making a living by collecting debts for his Mafioso father, a lifestyle that could eventually ruin his dreams of a musical career.

A businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After his release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking to almost no one except for an eel he befriended while in prison.

A small-time thug who collects debts for the local triad is torn between his criminal aspirations and his devotion to family.

A young man released from prison visits the widow of the man he killed drunk-driving and becomes infatuated with his cerebral palsy-stricken daughter.

A wily safecracker is forced to help a mob boss pull off a $150 million heist, but smells a double-cross in the works.

A mother lives quietly with her son. One day, a girl is brutally killed, and the boy is charged with the murder. Now, it's his mother's mission to prove him innocent.

A social worker assigned to the care of the daughter of a single mother intervenes when the dad returns from prison and lures them into a life of crime.

A gambling addict faces a conflict when entrusted with keeping a bunch of money that isn't his.

A former professional baseball player becomes entangled in loan-sharking and mob connections after a fixing scandal ejects him from his sport. When his girlfriend vanishes he is forced to confront his mentor and enter a deadly battle.

A pimp enforcer takes revenge on a woman who rejected his advances by tricking her into prostitution, but complications arise.

Jeong-yoon and Jong-bae own a car body repair shop together that gets in financial trouble. To help cover the losses and take care of her family, Jeong-yoon decides to smuggle thirty kilograms of cocaine.

After losing both her parents, Failan emmigrates to Korea to seek her only remaining relatives. Once she reaches Korea, she finds out that her relatives have moved to Canada well over a year ago. Desperate to stay and make a living in Korea, Failan is forced to have an arranged marriage through a match-making agency.

While on a trip to Thailand, a successful American businessman tries to radically change his life. Back in New York, his wife and daughter find their relationship with their live-in Filipino maid changing around them. At the same time, in the Philippines, the maid's family struggles to deal with her absence.

A successful lawyer who, in order to save her daughter, is pressured into defending the innocence of a man slated to receive the death penalty.

Beleaguered police detective Nishi takes desperate measures to try and set things right in a world gone wrong. With his wife suffering from leukemia and his business partner paralyzed from a brutal gangster attack, Nishi borrows from a yakuza loan shark and then robs a bank to clear his debt.

Returning home and finding his town drastically changed, a former soldier falls in with gangsters.

Zen, an autistic teenage girl with powerful martial arts skills, gets money to pay for her sick mother Zin's treatment by seeking out all the people who owe Zin money and making them pay.

Max is 6 years old. She lives with her dad Toni, a small time crook with a golden heart. For Xmas, Max offers him Rose, a call-girl found on the street whom she’s very fond of. Despite the complicated situation, Toni’s gonna have a hard time refusing her daughter’s «gift» and must coexist with Rose.

Desperate to be rid of her toddler, a dissatisfied Beverly Hills housewife hires a stranger to babysit and ends up getting much more than she bargained for.

An ex-con battles it out in the cage to pay for the operation that would save the daughter of his victim. Along the way he finds fatherly love, and friendship, in the most unlikely of places.

Con man Ray is going after one last heist – a stash of rare coins – when his estranged son Timmy unexpectedly shows up. Ray is too preoccupied with his robbery to spend time with his son, so Timmy blackmails him into acting like a father, hiding the coins and promises to return them only after Ray takes him to amusement parks and baseball games.

A poor North Korean fisherman finds himself an accidental defector, and is groomed to be a spy by an ambitious South Korean military officer.

Taken in by the yakuza at a young age, Kenji swears allegiance to his old-school boss, pledging to adhere to the family code amid ever-changing times.

After spending a decade in prison, a hitman learns that he has a daughter and just wants a chance at a normal life. But his former mob boss wants him back at any cost, sending merciless assassins after him.

Go-ni tries his best to worship Pyung Gyung-jang as his teacher, and promises to stop gambling after winning his money back. But people's desires are endless.

During the late 1990s, a busy working-class Singaporean couple hires a Filipino woman as a maid and nanny to their young son.

In a poor district of Edo lives a young samurai named Soza. He has been sent by his clan to avenge the death of his father. He isn't an accomplished swordsman however, and he prefers sharing the life of the residents, teaching the kids how to write etc. When he finally finds the man he is looking for, he will have to decide whether he follows the way of the samurai or chooses peace and reconciliation.

As a mother, in principle, you do not rob banks. But these days, it can be a solution for the future of your home, and not to give up on your dreams. Playing the thieves can quickly become dangerous and bad encounters can turn into a love story ...

A deaf man and his girlfriend resort to desperate measures in order to fund a kidney transplant for his sister. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.

Zuhtu, a nosy hawker who sells meatballs, one night finds a young girl escaping from her cruel relatives. He intends to help the girl but this costs him too much.

Jang Tae-Young is a popular trouble shooter in the criminal world. He is cold and ambitious. He dreams of building a casino hotel one day. A reporter then goes to Jang Tae-Young.

Shuhei is leading a tough life. His alcoholic mother Akiko can only hook up with bad guys and order Shuhei to go get money from his disapproving grandparents instead of going to school. Except raising the little half-sister, his rock-bottom life seems to have no end.

After being kidnapped as a small child and raised by the five men who abducted him, a teenage boy is now forced to join their life in crime.

When an old collaborator gets severely injured, a veteran policeman tries to figure out the way to bring to justice the ultimately suspected aggressor, a spoiled young executive, heir to a mega corporation, who believes he is above the law.

A small town pickpocket whose friends have moved on to higher trades finds himself bitter and unable to adapt.

A notorious dirty cop makes an honest attempt to catch a serial killer who even murdered his own parents.

A boy named Griffin finds a valuable multi-million dollar baseball card. After accidentally selling the card for a million dollar loss, he enlists the help of his best friend Ben and his colleagues to regain the baseball card.

During the 1970s, in Kunchon, there were women divers who were able to dive without equipment, including two best friends Choon-ja and Jin-sook, Jin-sook's brother and Hammer. They always collected seafood under water for living. But, as fewer factories started to be built near the beach, the women divers started to have trouble with what they were doing for living. Without any choice, the ship crews decided to join the smuggling business in the water to seek a way for their living. But the smuggling business in their village got too big for Jin-sook's family to handle and the peaceful village was gradually broken.

Two boys are becoming real adults during a turbulent time as they experience a world that doesn't go their way.

When a narco past his prime refuses to pay a debt to an upstart, only a secret stash of money can save his men. But guess what the gardener just found?

When a rich man's son is kidnapped, he cooperates with the police at first but then tries a unique tactic against the criminals.

Desperate for income, Emily takes a shady gig buying goods with stolen credit cards supplied by a charismatic middleman named Youcef. Seduced by the quick cash and illicit thrills, they hatch a plan to take their business to the next level.

After the gangsters who killed his father come to settle a score, a teenage boy and his mother turn the tables on the killers - one Latino family's quest for honor and revenge as the hunted become the hunters.

A high-profile burglar reconciles with his two daughters (half-siblings) to help him retaliate against his ex-partner who betrayed him.

A retired contract killer goes on a bloody rampage when a young girl finds herself at the mercy of gangland human traffickers and only one man can come to her rescue, with an arsenal of weapons and years of experience in the art of killing.

A phobic con artist and his protege are on the verge of pulling off a lucrative swindle when the con artist's teenage daughter arrives unexpectedly.

Kim Sun-woo is an enforcer and manager for a hotel owned by a cold, calculative crime boss, Kang who assigns Sun-woo to a simple errand while he is away on a business trip; to shadow his young mistress, Hee-soo, for fear that she may be cheating on him with a younger man with the mandate that he must kill them both if he discovers their affair.

A corrupted border agent decides to clean up his act when an impoverished woman's baby is put up for sale on the black market.

An imprisoned ex-police inspector discovers that the entire penitentiary is controlled by an inmate running a crime syndicate and becomes part of the crime empire.

After a traumatic event, a drug trafficker turns sides and conspires with a dangerously ambitious undercover police officer to bring down the mysterious kingpin of a major drug cartel.

A working single mother comes home one day to find that her daughter and the nanny have disappeared -- and this is just the beginning of her nightmare.

A group of swindlers unite to hunt down an infamous con man who was known dead, amid their hidden motives and deception.

A professional lady con makes herself the pharmacist's fiancée overnight, and faces a disastrous blemish in her impeccable con-woman career.

After a fictitious marriage with a Russian emigrant, Cellisten Louka, a Czech man, must suddenly take responsibility for her son. However, it’s not long before the communication barrier is broken between the two new family members.

A girl who went missing after an accident returns 10 years later and reunites with her grandmother.

Baran the Bandit, released from prison after serving 35 years, searches for vengeance against his former best friend who betrayed him and stole his lover, teaming up with a young punk with his own demons along the way.

Ryota Nonomiya is a successful businessman driven by money. He learns that his biological son was switched with another child after birth. He must make a life-changing decision and choose his true son or the boy he raised as his own.

Wang Tiemei, a single mother, loses her job and moves, befriending neighbor Xiaoye who appears cheerful but is depressed. Their bond grows as Tiemei navigates relationships with her ex-husband causing trouble.

A poor young Belgian mother wants her petty thief of a boyfriend to be gainfully employed to raise their newborn child, but he has other ideas.

When his brother-in-law runs afoul of a drug lord, family man Chris Farraday turns to a skill he abandoned long ago—smuggling—to repay the debt. But the job goes wrong, and Farraday finds himself wanted by cops, crooks and killers alike.

An ex-special agent is involved in a convoluted drug ring drama. He has to save a drug smuggler's innocent daughter from being the victim of her parents' fight.
