Yellow Sea (18.)
Directed by Na Hong-jin.
Starring Ha Jung-woo, Kim Yun-seok, Cho Seong-ha, Lee Chul-min. Korean with subtitles. 140 mins.
Doesn’t anyone in Korea have a gun? And if not, couldn’t someone give them some, if only for the sake of movie viewers? This blood drenched crime thriller is populated entirely by gangsters and lowlifes with not a shooter amongst them. Instead they have to go about their business using knives, hammers, kitchen implements and dog bones which is both wearisome and time consuming.
I think there’s a great crime thriller buried somewhere in Hong-jin’s follow up to the internationally acclaimed The Chaser but it gets lost in the convoluted plot and wild changes of tone.
Gu-nam (Ha Jung-woo) is a josunjok, the negative term used for ethnic Koreans born and living overseas. Menaced by loan sharks he scrapes a living taxi driving in Yanji City China, loses most of it playing mah-jong at night and curses the wife who hasn’t contacted him since he got into debt to get her a visa to go to Korea to earn money. In desperation he makes a deal with local crime lord Myun-Ga (Kim Yun-seok) to go to Korea and commit a murder.
The opening fifty minutes or so are a compelling study of desperation, like Biutiful with a rocket stuffed up its backside. It has that same way of filming the underclass with a scuzzy elegance. Then out of nowhere the film suddenly throws us into a dramatic chase sequence in which Gu-nam spectacularly eludes a multitude of policemen. It has to be said that it is a very fine chase sequence but it’s still a letdown – you’ve invested your attention in this underdog and his fate, and then all of sudden he’s turned into Jason Bourne.
Na Hong-jin can really capture a mood as well as pull off great action sequences. He gets great performances, especially from Kim Yun-seok as the surprisingly hands-on crime boss. But it needs a modicum of restraint. It’s not just the violence that spirals out of control in the final two thirds of the film: the plot twists around frantically and I had to get a post-film summary from my Korean companion. And just as in The Chaser, there is an almost pathological desire to show Korean police as being Keystone inept.
The darkly humorous excesses of all the scenes of bad people bludgeoning and piercing each other are a neat mirror for the film itself which works itself into an ultimately self defeating frenzy.
And by the way, apparently the answer to my opening question is no. Their gun laws are so strict that even gangsters don’t bother with them.
Directed by Na Hong-jin.
Starring Ha Jung-woo, Kim Yun-seok, Cho Seong-ha, Lee Chul-min. Korean with subtitles. 140 mins.
Doesn’t anyone in Korea have a gun? And if not, couldn’t someone give them some, if only for the sake of movie viewers? This blood drenched crime thriller is populated entirely by gangsters and lowlifes with not a shooter amongst them. Instead they have to go about their business using knives, hammers, kitchen implements and dog bones which is both wearisome and time consuming.
I think there’s a great crime thriller buried somewhere in Hong-jin’s follow up to the internationally acclaimed The Chaser but it gets lost in the convoluted plot and wild changes of tone.
Gu-nam (Ha Jung-woo) is a josunjok, the negative term used for ethnic Koreans born and living overseas. Menaced by loan sharks he scrapes a living taxi driving in Yanji City China, loses most of it playing mah-jong at night and curses the wife who hasn’t contacted him since he got into debt to get her a visa to go to Korea to earn money. In desperation he makes a deal with local crime lord Myun-Ga (Kim Yun-seok) to go to Korea and commit a murder.
The opening fifty minutes or so are a compelling study of desperation, like Biutiful with a rocket stuffed up its backside. It has that same way of filming the underclass with a scuzzy elegance. Then out of nowhere the film suddenly throws us into a dramatic chase sequence in which Gu-nam spectacularly eludes a multitude of policemen. It has to be said that it is a very fine chase sequence but it’s still a letdown – you’ve invested your attention in this underdog and his fate, and then all of sudden he’s turned into Jason Bourne.
Na Hong-jin can really capture a mood as well as pull off great action sequences. He gets great performances, especially from Kim Yun-seok as the surprisingly hands-on crime boss. But it needs a modicum of restraint. It’s not just the violence that spirals out of control in the final two thirds of the film: the plot twists around frantically and I had to get a post-film summary from my Korean companion. And just as in The Chaser, there is an almost pathological desire to show Korean police as being Keystone inept.
The darkly humorous excesses of all the scenes of bad people bludgeoning and piercing each other are a neat mirror for the film itself which works itself into an ultimately self defeating frenzy.
And by the way, apparently the answer to my opening question is no. Their gun laws are so strict that even gangsters don’t bother with them.
