Synopsis
A Korean man in China takes an assassination job in South Korea to make money and find his missing wife. But when the job is botched, he is forced to go on the run from the police and the gangsters who paid him.
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Cast
- Ha Jung-wooKim Gu-nam
- Kim Yoon-seokMyun Jeong-hak
- Cho Seong-haKim Tae-won
- Lee Cheol-minChoi Seong-nam
- Kwak Do-wonProfessor Kim Seung-hyun
- Im Ye-wonProfessor's Wife
- Tak Sung-eunGu-nam's Wife
- Lee ElJoo-young
- Jeong Man-sikDetective 1
- Jeong Min-seongDetective 2
Recommendations
- 90
The New York Times
A rush of a movie from South Korea that slips and slides from horror to humor on rivers of blood and offers the haunting image of a man, primitive incarnate, beating other men with an enormous, gnawed-over meat bone. - 90
Los Angeles Times
Na captures at once the fragility of the human body and the deep-rooted darkness of the human soul. The Yellow Sea is easily one of the films of the year for underserved action-heads. - 80
Empire
More startling than an unexpected punch in the noggin, Na Hong-Jin's unusual thriller could have the highest knife count this side of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. A violent thrill-ride to a dark new corner of Asian cinema. - 80
Variety
Gushing more blood and possessing more stamina than any number of Hollywood hack-'em-ups, writer-director Na Hong-jin's pulse-pounding, mordantly funny genre piece is at times messily convoluted, yet serious and full-bodied enough to achieve a genuinely tragic dimension. - 80
The Guardian
A deafening explosion of energy, gruesome violence and chaos. - 70
Village Voice
If anything, Na's film is too much of a good thing, exceeding credibility too often (the punching-bag hero is far too lucky - good and bad - and absorbs a hilarious amount of punishment) in its pursuit of despairing violence. But that's the Korean way, and Na nails down the bottom feeder realism while slouching toward video-game hyperbole. - 60
Time Out
Like fellow countryman Park Chan-wook's vengeful epics, this man-on-the-run thriller knows how to deliver a rush; unlike those superior tales of lives on the edge, that's the only trick up its sleeve. - 50
The Hollywood Reporter
The raging stamina, unrelenting violence, rapid-fire editing and truncated narrative all give one no pause for thought or even breath. By the time the central mystery is revealed in a nice twist, it gets swallowed in the messy, anti-climactic end.
