Movie: The Yellow Sea (18)Rating: 4.5/5Director Na Hong-jin, known for his mindblowing action thriller THE CHASER, returns with THE YELLOW SEA, another action thriller but with a lot of difference as well as excellence. Starring Ha Jung-woo and Kim Yoon-seok, it's a film every cinema enthusiast should watch. It's a masterpiece by all means and a film which isn't just a film but something more than that.THE YELLOW SEA is a film which presents human emotions in a very realistic manner. Ha Jung-woo is so excellent as Gu-nam that you'll definitely root for him. Kim Yoon-seok is very impressive as usual, and leaves and impact like the former. Rest of the cast is impressive as well.The character development is what needs to be praised. It's so good that you feel like you know the characters fully, and eventually you manage to develop a psychological relation with them, especially Gu-nam played by Ha Jung-woo. The film's biggest strength is the screenplay itself, as it contains all other brilliant elements a film of this genre needs. The cinematography is excellent and captures the journey of the characters very well. The action sequences are: extremely mindblowing and spellbinding! And due to this, they deserve a repeated watch. The editing is excellent, and I recommend you to watch the director's cut as it has a lot of depth. Can't say about the other version because I haven't seen that, but the director's cut being an amazing one is, I feel, better to watch.The emotions are very well brought out on screen. The film is exactly what you can expect from a South Korean filmmaker. It's emotional, thrilling, violent, action packed and what not. It has everything to keep you hooked to the edge of the seat. There's not even a single dull moment and the film is very enjoyable despite of being quite dark as well.THE YELLOW SEA is a perfect action thriller which shows what South Korean filmmakers are capable of. Definitely, with films of this kind, they will earn more respect in the eyes of viewers. Highly recommended!

First I have to admit that nowadays the more I watched Korean movies, the more I appreciate their good work with a stretch range of variance themes. For right now I am in a state that I will pick a recommended Korean movie over the mega budget Hollywood flick any day of the week. Since my first introductory of Korean movie more or less a decade ago with the like of 'My Sassy Girl', 'Sorum', 'Memories of Murder', 'Oldboy', etc, things only get better.And with 'The Yellow Sea' I can't help but to once again utter my sincere compliment. The movie basically divided into four segments each related to the situation of our protagonist. The protagonist himself is a grey character between evil and good, which didn't come as surprise, as many Korean movies has done a lot deal with such a character, take 'Oldboy' or 'I am a Father'.The first segment is meant to tell us about the dark and depressing background of the protagonist and the motive following his grim decision for the audience to tolerate. The second segment is what followed after and I assured you it will thrill and hold you at the edge of your chair. Very pacey and full of suspense that the second segment itself could stand as a suspenseful modern noir, of which Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder will nod in full agreement.But I think what followed after the second segment is where the movie slipped over. Director Na Hong Jin (from 'The Chaser') tried everything to provide a decent thriller, but maybe he just tried too hard. The way he prolonged the movie and transformed it into multi characters rather than kept focusing on the main character, the die hard character in bloody melee combat, the car flipping and car chasing scenes which was superb and not inferior to that Hollywood's made, those were all but just not add up to the movie's substantial but rather blurred the entire purpose of the movie.If the movie is intended as a powerful thriller drama then it surely slipped in the latter half of the movie. A decent thriller drama can not be stuffed with too much action flick I guess. Nevertheless I still like the movie very much and would like to recommend it to all Asian(or Korean) movie enthusiast. Only that I really wish the director made the movie only three quarters as long, stayed focus on the protagonist's gloomy campaign and ended it up the way it was. It would be a dark and a too powerful movie instead.

Unable to break free of the visa debts that his wife left him with when she went to South Korea to earn money, a taxi driver takes an offer from local criminal Myun to be smuggled into South Korea in order to kill someone for him. The money is the main motivator but he also hopes he can find his wife somehow. Trying to accomplish these hurts both of his goals and, as he is soon to discover, the story is much larger than just a simple killing.I had heard good things about this film and, if I'm honest, it took me a while to get around to watching it mainly because the running time put me off. In a way I was right and wrong because when I finally did watch it the running time is excessive but yet it does mostly still deliver as a thriller. The plot sees a simple murder escalate as others involve in its planning or execution all start to represent a danger to our main character, who is trying to get home even though he'll be no safer there. It takes a little while to get moving but the film soon delivers some violent scenes as well as some exciting chases and escapes. The build of the plot helps these be engaging and exciting while in fairness they are also pretty well filmed as well. The more frantic action has the feel of the Bourne movies (although not as effective) and those that know the locations may get extra value from Busan harbor and some of Seoul showing up.The plot isn't perfect though and it does contribute towards most of the film's weaknesses. The first of these is the subplot involving the missing wife; it acts as an engagement tool with the main character that we didn't really need but otherwise it just seems to add distraction away from the main narrative. I was fine with it being mentioned but in the end I didn't understand why it was given so much time. Speaking of time, this is an issue because the film runs far longer than it really needs to and even though I enjoyed it, I still found myself thinking of all the really obvious places where the film could have been edited down to a still-generous two hours. As it is, the length means the pace cannot be kept up and that the simple story is spread out too much. This shows in how excessive but yet how very tidy everything gets. I liked the way that the various characters all fell into place around the lead's story, but I liked it best when it was chaotic, not when it is all pulled together to be all tidy and resolved at the end. That said I did enjoy the nihilistic tone it had and that, in the end, the route of the original murder was something so simple and personal that it wasn't even worth one man's death, far less all those shown here.The main actor is convincing and kept me interested in his escape; his performance keeps him as a human and tragic figure even though he is able to evade the odds a bit too easily and a bit too frequently. Myun is a great character full of menace and violence and the actor has fun in that role, but the excessive action does at time get too much to buy into since he has a stamina that a Terminator would baulk at. The rest of the cast fill in well enough, but mostly it is the action and plot that keeps the film moving, not the performances. Na's direction is good although I know some dislike cameras that move all the time.Overall Hwanghae is a solid and enjoyable thriller which would be better were it not for its own excesses. The running time is excessive, the spiralling plot and stamina of the main characters are excessive and the whole film really needed a tighter edit to make the most of its strengths. Still solidly good but could have been more.

A down-on-his-luck debt-ridden taxi driver (Ha Jeong-woo) in Yabian (a forgotten no man's land bordered by North Korea, China and Russia) is made an offer by gangster Kim Yoon-seok to clear his debts by travelling to South Korea (in the most horrible, degrading way that illegal immigrants suffer the world over on a daily basis) and killing someone (bringing back the thumb as evidence). While there, Ha also hopes to find out what happened to his (treacherous?) wife who left to work but disappeared. Need i mention that things go wrong, and a monumental *beep*-storm escalates? Viewers worried that Director Na had peaked with his amazing debut CHASER (starring the same two leads) can rest assured that this paints violent tragedy on a bigger canvas, and includes some breathtaking action and thrills. Not for the squeamish. And don't forget that wicked streak of blacker-than-black comedy. Highly recommended. With Jo Seong-ha. I saw the 156 min. theatrical cut, but a shorter (140) Director's Cut is available.