Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

grantss Uneven pacing and ultimately quite hit-and-miss.Gu-nam (played by Jung-woo Ha) is a taxi driver in Yanji City, in China, near North Korea. Through a gambling habit, he has run up a large amount of debt. Wis wife has gone to South Korea to find a job and he hasn't seen her in six months. A local gangster then offers him a large sum of money to kill someone in South Korea. He accepts and heads to South Korea, but things don't go according to plan.So-so. The second quarter was interesting, the rest was meh. Starts slowly, then suddenly ratchets up the action, then basically becomes one long chase and ultimately fizzles out. A tighter plot, especially in the latter half, would have made it far more compelling.Decent performances all round though.

McCamyTaylor First, I should mention that I am a Buddhist. That means that I usually find Asian action films more satisfying that American action films. In the west, dualistic good versus evil themes dominate violent movies. As long as "good" defeats "evil" in the end, we are supposed to go away satisfied, no matter how much suffering occurs between the opening and closing credits. In the east, there is a different morality. The Buddha taught that desire (attachment) is the root of all suffering. So, in an Asian action film we see characters who are done in through their own excessive desire/attachment. Since the things to which they are attached are often things we are trained to see as "good"---like love, wealth, family---the endings of Asian films can seem confusing or depressing.This film has the standard Buddhist themes. However, it has more. The characters---even some of the ones we might like to think of as "bad"---are surprisingly well rounded, with admirable qualities as well as less than admirable qualities. The social/economic system that requires that many live in poverty so that a few can live in wealth is properly criticized, but the film is not a Marxist polemic. As good Buddhists, we know in our hearts that balance in all things and detachment is the ideal, but the film makers still use every trick at their disposal to make us care about the main character and his quest.Regarding the film's length, I think it was perfect. This is a lot like one of the "Once Upon a Time In..." movies that shows you many different points of view of the same place/conflict/time. Yes, the length and differing viewpoints make it difficult to summarize the movie. However, real life can not be summarized, either. Real life is complicated. And by the time the film reached it inevitable conclusion (inevitable if you are a Buddhist) I felt as if I had finished reading a novel rather than watching a film. Despite the nice, tidy (Buddhist) ending, there was still lots left for me to mull upon.

Leofwine_draca An absolutely spectacular Korean thriller that a) does everything perfectly and b) engages and involves the viewer like few other films. South Korea is currently one of the hottest places in the world for film-makers; it was only last year that I saw the excellent MAN FROM NOWHERE for the first time, a movie that soon became a favourite. THE YELLOW SEA follows suit. Although it's a two-and-a-half-hour movie, it grips you from the outset and never lets you go.If only Western cinema would take as many risks and gambles as this film does. It's not an easy watch; pretty much the entire cast is populated by criminals and murderers, and even the protagonist is a man who thinks nothing of taking on a contract killing job. Yet he becomes a character you root for, purely because he's less evil than the others out to get him; he appears to be a man of his word, at least as far as we can tell, and that counts for something in a dog-eat-dog world.The film reunites the director and two stars of the excellent serial killer flick THE CHASER but THE YELLOW SEA is a different beast entirely: a wronged man-style thriller if you will. It packs a great deal of thoroughly exciting chase and action sequences into the running time; inspired by THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, each of these employs the shaky-cam to excellent effect, where you never miss out on the action. This is also an exceptionally violent film packed with knife and hatchet fights and brutal slayings that sit alongside more Hollywoodised foot and car chases.The actors are excellent in their parts; so believable that you never question them for a second. Ha Jung-woo is particularly good because he never does anything to make you sympathise with him for a moment, and yet you end up doing so anyway; he's just a small-time guy who gets out of his depth and has to use his ingenuity to survive. His journey is one of the most gritty and realistic I've ever seen in film; it doesn't get any more engrossing than this. Kim Yun-seok, in contrast, playing people-smuggler Myun, is larger than life and his character's ability to survive against overwhelming odds is similarly profound. Beautifully shot and expertly scripted, The Yellow Sea is an example of cinema as it should be; if only more films were like this!

gavin6942 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 mahjong to make some extra cash, but this only makes his life worse; but then he meets a hit-man who proposes to turn his life around by repaying his debt and reuniting with his wife, just for one hit.Fans of action films, gangster movies, thrillers, spy films... you will enjoy this movie. It has a similar level of production value as "Oldboy", and the same graphic violence -- perhaps even more so. While the idea was that one Korean was targeted for death, he is only one of many who end up in the path of slaughter.There is an interesting political and cultural undertone here, but I am not knowledgeable enough to fully grasp and understand it. The main character is a Chinese citizen of Korean descent, who are apparently a culture all their own in China and treated as such. I feel like there is some important message in that, but I am not well-versed in Chinese or Korean culture and cannot say too much.The film has minor flaws. I was not sure who every character was -- two men, for example, show up part way through and I either missed their importance or it is not clearly explained. And how the protagonist is able to outrun a dozen or more police officers at a time without special training is beyond me.