Review of The Yellow Sea (2010) by Joao Manuel A — 21 Jul 2012

There are not many filmmakers who can build tension as effectively as South Korean filmmaker Hon-Jin Na. This is undoubletly a great feat amidst the creative maelstrom that comes from the core of the Asian New Wave; with the works of Park Chan-wook, Jee-woon Kim, Takashi Miike or Takeshi Kitano setting an admirably high standard. It is especially noteworthy as Hon Jin-Na has not yet reached the same level of critical and commercial success as his peers once reached despite the fact that Naâ??s first feauture The Chaser was one of the most important films of the last ten years. Building on the goodwill earned from his work as a director Hon-Jin na presents us with his sophomore effort entitled The Yellow Sea.

For the first half hour of the film we are presented to Gu-nam, a degenerate gambler who night after night tries his luck playing mahjong in order to pay the debt he ran up in order to send his wife to South Korea. Night after night, he get even more in debt and to worsen his load everyone says his wife is cheating on him. He ignores them but heâ??s haunted by the possibility. After being offered an opportunity to clear his debts and return to South Korea in exchange for the killing of a businessman our hero accepts and is smuggled into the country. We then see as Gu-Nam prepares for the killing with clinical precision detail for then sees his plans foiled and watch him being forced to run from two rival gangs and the police.

From this point forward, the pacing accelerates so much that the contrast with the first act is startling. The setup may have been slow but on the second act, the payoff is more then enough to leave a mark even on the more cynic audience member. The complexities of the relationship between Gu-nam and the main antagonist in particular is where most cinematic pleasure can be obtained. Both are faces of the same coin even though they are so different. This paradox is enhanced by the levels of physicality that both demonstrate, surviving almost everything, never falling, always keeping moving forward. That aspect is amplified by the total lack of the use of guns throughout the film. Instead more primitive tools such as knifes, fists or even bones are used to provoke the highest levels of pain possible. In one standout moment, one of the gangs attacks the other killing many of the enemy, the boss hears the turmoil downstairs and unable to find any blunt instrument uses a bone left on his plate after the dinner in order to make sure all of his opponents perish. The primitive aspect of these and other scenes creates a sense of danger and immeduacy that raises the stakes and demonstrates how brutal the wordls being portrayed is. This rising tension found on the second act builds to one of the most surreal chase scenes of the past decade to then ending as quietly as it began. It is visually stunning and marvelously done.

The Chaser may have been a hard act to follow but Hon-Jin Na proves heâ??s on the top of his form, creating with The Yellow Sea a masterwork on tension build up that can be easily be ranked as one of the finest thrillers of the past ten years.