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The Yellow Sea (2011)

Director: Hong-jin Na

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3 reviews

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From Time Out London

South Korean director Na Hong-jin (‘The Chaser’) has raided his cooking utensil drawer for this grubby and grim revenge epic in which the kitchen knife is king (but a rusty hatchet will always suffice). Ha Jung-woo is the gambling addict cabbie who’s 60 grand in the hole after his wife went off staking claims in Seoul and never came back. So, he enters into a Faustian pact with a local crime kingpin to wipe his debts. All he has to do is head to the big city and assassinate a professor. With a kitchen knife. And while he’s there he can track down his missus. Win-win! After a ruthlessly focused, almost-Hitchcockian first hour, Na’s film fans out into a flabby, multi-stranded gang war and loses all sense of purpose. A listless succession of brutal, consequence-free stabbings encase a pair of lengthy chase set pieces, both technically adept, both utterly ridiculous.

Author: David Jenkins

Time Out London Issue 2148: 20 – 26 October, 2011

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User reviews of this film

Danny said...

Posted on Feb 25 2012 10:09 Surprisingly excellent. Action packed.

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Tony Montana said...

Posted on Nov 10 2011 03:03 How do you know what I know or don't know? korean movies are lame.

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M00nlighter said...

Posted on Nov 02 2011 22:42 Clearly you don't know anything about Korean movies so why comment? What do you have to say about American remakes of many Asian movies pretending to be original ideas?

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