The Yellow Sea is a 2010 South Korean movie written and directed by Na Hong-jin, the one who made his debut in 2008 with a gruesome feature named The Chaser. Not that this one is less gruesome, or maybe it is. Bloody or not, it’s watchable, you are prepared somehow in advance for the upcoming violence, so this is not a horror movie. As I already mentioned in a previous post, this is a surprise first review in this category. I should have started with a more classical piece like Chan-wook Park‘s Oldboy (2003) or even the Oscar winner Parasite (2019), by Bong Joon-ho. I decided to review Korean movies because I find them special.
Jung-woo Ha in The Yellow Sea
[source for both pics: imdb]
The Yellow Sea – Round-up
The action originates in China, in a Korean slum, in the city of Yanji, the biggest in Yanbian, the Korean Autonomous Prefecture. You may think that in China being Communist and uniform, the streets are at least clean, and all the people work, even for a minimum wage. Yanbian is at the North Korean border, but the Korean ethnics living there are descendants from both sides. They are called Joseonjok, and they are available for every fishy job they can handle. Gangsters rule the city.
A taxi driver borrowed a consistent sum of money to facilitate his wife’s escape to South Korea to work for better wages. He expects her to send back at least enough to cover her departure expenses. On top of that, he likes to gamble a few pennies at Mah Jong and he doesn’t seem very lucky. He is constantly bullied by local gangsters, even by the small fry. He often inquires about his wife or the money to go-between fellows, but nothing. The wig grows up as well. He is approached by the biggest Korean gangster around and offered a deal. He has to let himself smuggled to Seoul and there to kill a guy in a maximum of ten days from arrival. The debt will be paid in full after his job’s conclusion. He is given a small advance to cover his Korean expenses.
Conditions are tough, but he accepts only for the opportunity to find his wife. All the suckers around suggest that she found another guy and that’s why she kept mum. It’s obvious that he loves her, he has every night wet dreams with her, so he doesn’t believe a word he’s hearing. If any of those are true, he’ll eventually take revenge.
I don’t see any flaw, the action is logical enough as it is twisted. We are not offered details about this taxi guy, and that’s what I love in this sort of movie, you have to think about it yourself to understand what happens. Of course, for others is necessary to mention that Paris is in France and not in Italy, to achieve huge global success, preferably to throw a monster or two in it, or to mix the cast with some NAMES, like in Snowpiercer. Maybe my example is wrong, since there is a Paris in Texas as well, and I can see the confusion when the Eiffel Tower appears on the screen, but enough of these.
Cast
Ha Jung-woo is Gu-nam, the main character. Kim Yoon-seok is Myun Jung-hak, the Yanji gangster. Jo Sung-ha is Tae-won, a Korean gangster. Kwak Do-won is Prof. Kim Seung-hyun, the contract.
Written and directed by Na Hong-jin.
Trailer
I’m not sure I’ll show a trailer, it has to be not at all revealing… so, better not 🙂
More than that, even less pictures than usual are better than more 🙂
Conclusion
I have watched Ha Jung-woo in Nameless Gangster: Rules of Time (2012), where he plays with Min-sik Choi, the already famous star from Oldboy, probably the best Korean actor to date. This is debatable, and I shall soon post a list of my favorite Korean actors and actresses, also debatable. I already like a few, and have also noticed some differences. There are not many votes on IMDB to count for Top 250 in the future, there has to be at least 25k, and the rating seems to be a minimum of 8.2 out of 10 to make the top. I’m sure I have said many times before, that worse movies made the top, but there are also a lot of fabulous films in there, even if they’re not in their right places.
The Yellow Sea 2010 Poster
The Chaser, the other criminal drama by Na Hong-jin, insanely touches the boundary of horror, in James Patterson‘s style. Sick critics called Patterson the greatest storyteller of this century. Because Fifty Shades of Grey was the highest-grossing book of this century, I think E L James is the greatest storyteller, or maybe it is Dame J. K. Rowling, don’t you agree? Viva Hollywood!
The Yellow Sea is not a romance, it is a violent action-crime-drama with a 7.3 out of 10 ratings from 18.5k votes. I promise more Korean, maybe every two posts, or so.
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