Review of The Yellow Sea (2010) by Jack C — 30 Sep 2011

Directed by Hong-jin Na.

The story of a cab driver in Yanji City, a region between North Korea, China and Russia. His wife goes to Korea to earn money, but he doesn't hear from her since in 6 months. He plays mah-jong to make some extra cash, but this only makes hif life worse; but then he meets a hitman who proposes to turn his life around by repaying his debt and reuniting with his wife, just for one hit (Plot).

Once again, the filmmakers and actors (the same as The Chaser 2008) from South Korea have hit a huge great film again, nothing bad here, just in one word when the film end you will say wow !, one of the best thrillers I saw in my life, the film combines many things such as crimes, suspense, betrayal, bloody fight, hunts, struggle, patience, pain, sacrifice,car chases and more!

I love everything in this film, first the story of the film and how the director tells in three major characters in 4 chapters, secondly linking all the three characters in many scenes and goals (Money!), thirdly the great performance of the three characters especially the(Jung-woo Ha and Yun-seok Kim) and finally directing and Screenplay was remarkable !.

Director Na in his 156-minute film divided into four chapters ( Taxi driver, Killer, Joseon Clan and Yellow Sea) practically wrote about the history of the building of primal instincts, how they get awakened by chance, how they crash with other instincts and the ending to it all.

Had he given more commercial consideration he could have made the running time more compact. The latter half of the film drags on a bit due to the repeated pattern of killings and chase. Therefore dividing the film in chapters to show three people's perspectives from beginning to end is 100 percent director Na's own doing.

5/5.