TWO FILMS BY NA-HONG JIN IN CONTRAST TO ONE ANOTHER - THE CHASER AND THE YELLOW SEA

Korean director Na-Hong Jin has made two films - THE CHASER and THE YELLOW SEA.  Both could be described as “action thrillers” and both exceed the two hour mark but the end result is very different.

THE CHASER is taut all the way through never letting up on the intensity.  As The ex-cop turned pimp races against time to save a hooker employee from a serial killer, we never once lose interest.  The various twists and turns are clearly understood by the audience and make it more than just a chase film.  A fantastic film!

Contrast that with THE YELLOW SEA.  What is actually a great plot – a poor Korean cab driver in a section of China bordering Korea is offered a a chance by a local gangster to clear his gambling debts and find his missing wife who has gone to Seoul for work.  First, he must kill a person in Seoul for the gangster.

The problem with this film isn’t the filmmaking.  It’s just as tense as THE CHASER. Some of the chase scenes are even better.  The scene where the cab driver is smuggled into Korea could be a primer in human trafficking.  However, in the second half, once the murder plot is revealed to be much more conspiratorial and convoluted than thought, the film loses complete control of the plot.  There were times when I had no idea what was going on.  In this the long length hurts the film.

I should say that part of the problem might be the English subtitles on my version.  Read some posting on the IMDB forum for this movie and that seems to be a problem for many.

In any event, the two films stand in contrast to one another – Both multi-layered thrillers over two hours but with very different results.

I should also mention Kim Yoon-Seok who plays the hero in THE CHASER but the villain in THE YELLOW SEA.  His performance is one of the best things about both of these films.

Let’s hope Na-Hong Jin doesn’t lose control of the plot for his third film.  No question about his visual directorial skills.