The Yellow Sea October 20, 2011ArticleJim Poe20.10.2011 - South Korean director Na Hong-jin's 2008 thriller The Chaser was a wickedly confident and stylish debut feature, combining taut suspense and the grisly, unflinching violence typical of Korean genre flicks with keen, Sidney Lumet-esque commentary on an ineffectual political system. A record-breaking blockbuster at home, the film was also a surprise hit overseas, and was picked up for an (as-yet-unmade) American remake by Warner Bros. starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Upon its release in the US, critic Roger Ebert wrote, "When I see a film like this, it reminds me of what we're missing… In addition to remaking this film, Hollywood should study it." The same can be said - and even more forcefully - of Na's epic follow-up, The Yellow Sea, which is showcased at ADFF this week. Whereas The Chaser was a brilliant genre exercise, The Yellow Sea transcends the form of the action thriller. Though filled with breathless chase sequences and brutal knife-and-axe fights, it's also a surprisingly powerful drama imbued with tragedy and laced with blackly comic social commentary - all executed with great cinematic flair. Few recent Hollywood movies have pulled such a thing off with such verve. It's an outrageously good second feature that should place Na in the conversation with Christopher Nolan and few others.The Yellow Sea is also the first Korean film to be directly financed by a major Hollywood studio (Fox International), and is thus primed to be an international success. Fans of contemporary Asian genre films and newcomers alike will find themselves in the hands of a terrific storyteller from the opening sequences. The film starts in Yanji City, in China's Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, a state where tens of thousands of Koreans live in virtual exile, and crime is rampant. Whether Yanji City is really as squalid and bleak as it is depicted here doesn't matter; the point is Na utilizes fantastic production design - treeless streets strewn with garbage, fluorescent lights, smoky mahjong dens - to create an oppressive atmosphere of hopelessness that gives the film's troubled hero no choice but to embark on a dark odyssey. Ha Jung-woo and Kim Yun-seok, the charismatic stars of The Chaser, return as Na's main players, but they've swapped roles as good guy and bad guy. Ha is Gu-nam, a cab driver mired in poverty and depression. His wife fled to Seoul six months before to look for work, but he hasn't heard from her since and is saddled with a debt of 60,000 yuan to some gangsters for her illegal visa. Everyone tells him to forget about her because she's likely become a prostitute. Rather than cope, he drinks and gambles away what little he has, leaving his infant daughter in the care of his mother. Then Gu-nam is approached by a local ganglord, the swaggering, wisecracking Myun who offers him a way out. If Gu-nam will travel to Seoul and kill a certain man for him (bringing his thumb back as evidence), his debt will be cancelled. He can look for his wife while he's at it. Desperate, Gu-nam reluctantly accepts the offer. At this point, there is no going back - Myun will go after Gu-nam's family if he fails. Myun, a human trafficker, arranges passage for Gu-nam across the eponymous sea. The harrowing journey in the hold of a cargo ship foregrounds Gu-nam's realistic but sympathetic depiction of the struggles of the poor and dispossessed (refugees and migrant laborers), a crucial theme lending this crime story unusual depth. From here, the framework of an epic hero's journey will define the film - but very little goes right on Gu-nam's quest. When he arrives in Seoul, he is a pitiful figure stalking the dirty, cold, crowded back alleys, an outcast in his own ancestral land searching in vain for his wife and living on junk food. The long sequence in which a frightened Gu-nam prepares for his contract kill is one of the best of its kind in recent memory. Na attains Hitchcockian levels of suspense and narrative power with just a few visual elements: a staircase, motion-sensor lights, a wristwatch alarm, a parked car, silhouettes in a window. As might be expected, the hit goes haywire - Myun has been double-crossed - and a spectacular chase scene ensues in which the (mostly) innocent Gu-nam flees scores of cops through the streets and rooftops of Seoul. Spatial sense is the key to Na's brilliant action choreography and editing. We always know where we are in space, whether in a back alley or on the aforementioned staircase, making the hero's exertions satisfyingly believable (if not necessarily realistic).Similarly, the fight scenes have a physicality unusual in the age of CGI action. Though the fights are as awesome as any in recent memory, there's a savage realism, a sickening palpability to each blow, each slap, each desperate bite, each broken bone - not to mention the fatigue and horror brought on by bloodshed. Na is one of few filmmakers who seek to demonstrate how harrowing, how difficult it is to harm another human being with your hands or with a piece of metal. He includes very little gunfire in The Yellow Sea - almost all of the fighting is done with knives and axes. The botched killing sparks a chaotic gang war, and Gu-nam becomes the subject of a massive manhunt. As he seeks redemption, he becomes more and more lost in the criminal underworld, wounded and filled with remorse, learning to kill to stay alive, becoming a ghostly avenging angel. As Gu-nam lurches toward this destiny, Na finds a perfect balance of bleak noir, slam-bang action and caustic black comedy (particularly whenever Myun, a comedian-killer worthy of Quentin Tarantino, is on screen). The Yellow Sea is one of the most satisfying genre-picture experiences of the last few years, and Hollywood filmmakers would do well to take heed.The Yellow Sea screens at VOX Cinemas, Marina Mall on Friday, October 21 at 9pm and Saturday, October 22 at 4:30pm. More NewsSherief ElKatsha on 'Cairo Drive'Who Is Dayani Cristal?A Few Days in the Life of a Misunderstood Artist Are Seen in Camille Claudel 1915 festival guidedownload