The first and last 15 minutes of this movie are really engaging visually and vitalize your interest in the story. The problem lies with the middle of the movie where little is presented to keep with the pace of the action. The movie tries too hard to capture a tone of being constantly "bad-ass", and with this loss of cohesion surrounding the plot the film breaks apart in the 2nd act. I got bored amidst the slo-mo and camera effects, they were used too much in which they lost their emphasis after a while. Also it's difficult to understand the progression of the characters, not always clear what they're doing or why. It's a standard Heroic Bloodshed flick except the cinematographer is on ecstasy and the scriptwriter is on speed. There's an imbalance between the visuals and material. Regardless it's a very interesting crime film to watch, and if your a big fan of the Matrix you can check out where the Wachowski bros took some of their inspiration from. Other than that, there's not much here for moviegoers outside the incredibly specific niche of Asian crime dramas. -5/10

NOWHERE TO HIDE was one of the first Korean films to make it to the West -- and it's a hell of a film. The plot - about a team of cops hunting an assassin - is utterly conventional but only serves to disguise how wild the film really is. Starting off in scratchy b&w - every frame a burst of aggression - before jumping into a mellow rain of colour as autumn leaves fall amid the pouring rain as the assassin strikes. It's nuts, but in a good way. Every ten minutes, just when you think it has settled down, the film will find something unexpected to do. It helps that the cops are demented - maybe ROK cops are? - and consider hanging a suspect upside down and swinging him backwards and forwards an acceptable way to get information. This isn't a film to watch for the story, but for the sheer excitement of its experimentation.

This film is not an obvious one for everyone. To quote the main star "You don't think this is your normal cops & robber film do you?". The story follows primarily the chase between a clever and elusive gangster, charged with murder, and a very unorthodox detective.The setting is South Korea, home of the best cinema in the world this decade, and the race is taken against a backdrop of mixed directorial styles such that it overtakes the story, although this is no bad thing. The direction blends together styles that Tarantino I'm sure would be jealous of, as it puts his effort in the same vein (kill bill) to shame.This shouldn't be though to forget the acting with the lead role of Detectie Woo being a great charismatic character even with all his faults.If you want to watch a strong movie with style and originality. Then this is it. Engaging and interesting, and very very modern, will be a seminal movie for the genre in years to come.

I rented this movie because one of the guys on this message board said that the matrix revolutions stole a scene from this movie. So i pop in the movie and i'm expecting to see some guys flying around kicking each other's a$$'s. The final fight has two simalarities with the matrix. 1. they fight in the rain 2. there is a close up of the guys clenching their fists.wow. it seems like they really ripped this movie bad. if you watch this movie from beginning to end, you will find that it is one of the lamest movies ever. the fights are not choreographed, the main guy, Woo, walks like a freaking ape, and the police use baseball bats and mace for weapons. the movie would have been better if they hadn't tried to use the slow motion effect all the time. it seems as though it was edited on a really old computer because of the terrible visual effects.Trying to say that the matrix ripped off this movie is like trying to say that back to the future was a rip off the time machine because of time travel, or star wars was a rip off of star trek because it takes place in space. just because a movie does some of the same things, doesn't mean that the idea was stolen.