South Korean cinema is kicking off in a BIG way. A notable film industry for many reasons, output in the last ten years has seen the countries visual exports gaining international recognition across the generic board with phenomenonal domestic and global success after success.
Chan-wook Park's 2003 global smash Oldboy arguably elevated South Korean cinema's action films to a massive new audience and has given rise to some of the most intense, violent and densely packed films I've ever seen.
South Korea is also one of the only countries where domestically produced films regularly out-gross their Hollywood rivals, and after watching a film like The Yellow Sea it's easy to see why...
Hong-jin Na's first film The Chaser was exactly that: a massive game of cat and mouse and hunted and hunter and vice versa with his second feature being no different; a never ending onslaught of intensity for two and a half hours, cut constantly on a heartbeat with intertwining narrative strains, shitloads of characters, tied up with a bow of ultra graphic realistic violence.
Narratively it's incredibly dense. Slightly broken up by a reasonable four chapter system, The Yellow Sea takes it's name from the georaphical location which borders North Korea, China and Russia. We follow North Korean born Josean taxi driver, Goo-nam as he attempts to earn some cash to pay his gambling debts by performing a hit in Seoul for a dodgy geezer. His wife is also missing, apparently last seen in Seoul... So off he goes.
His plans of assassination blatently fall through and the onslaught begins... The shit realy hits the fan when Goo-nam is being hunted by the police, the guy who ordered the hit (who turns out to be a mob don), and a rival cartel boss who's thugs bungled the hit but still want the bounty... Arrgghhh!
These three characters all come to knife-weilding loggerheads and represent different approaches to primal violence and the actual reasoning behind the chaos is relatively insignificant. There is only small amounts of money involved and the sheer weight of violence and death just seems incredibly unnecessary. The whole thing is absolutely mental and just doesn't stop until the end. Incredibly high octane carnage, it shits on every single comic-book-action-hero-franchise of late.
Influences are clearly cyclical here, there's a fantastic The Shining homage with a maze of buses and a hatchet and some of the car chase scenes scream contemporary Hollywood, but to be honest everything is taken to the next level. Furthering the cause and effect chain, some big Korean directors have their first Hollywood features in production now, Jee-woon Kim director of I Saw the Devil and A Tale of Two Sisters is working on Arnie-helmed action flick The Last Stand due out in 2013...
There is no doubt in the near future we're going to see more of the same high-standard, seat tipping stuff from the Koreans. Major Props.
Trailer:
Cal x
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