South Korean thrillers are not kind to their protagonists. In fact, they bring them to their knees and beat them into submission. You can argue most thrillers work that way, but the SK variety are so unrelenting I find them enjoyably exhausting to watch. Even if the only one you’ve seen is Oldboy, you know what I mean.

The Yellow Sea (2010) falls into this category in spectacular fashion. Ku-Nam (Ha Jeong-woo) is a poor cab driver at the end of his rope. His wife left home to find work in another country, but he hasn’t heard from her in months. His mounting debts have forced him into gambling, which makes the situation worse. After watching Ku-Nam violently explode during a game of mahjong, crime boss  Myung-Ga (Kim Yoon-seok) offers to take care of his debts if he travels to South Korea and carries out a hit. Ku-Nam accepts, and that’s when things begin to go very badly for him and everyone else.

The Yellow Sea is the second film by director Na Hong-jin. His first, The Chaser (2008), features the same two actors, except Kim Yoon-seok plays the sympathetic lead. And like it, The Chaser is a savage, maddening thrill ride. Eom Joong-ho (Kim Yoon-seok) is a former cop who runs an escort service. Girls begin disappearing, and as Joong-ho investigates he discovers a serial killer (Ha Jeong-woo) has been kidnapping them. Even though he gets the serial killer to confess, he’s going to be released from the police station in twelve hours because of a lack of evidence and staff resources. So begins a night of hell for Joong-ho.

If you’re relatively new to South Korean cinema, I would recommend watching The Chaser first, for two reasons. One: The Yellow Sea features a controversial ending that some have interpreted as a giant middle finger to the audience. Two: The Yellow Sea runs about a half hour longer, and parts of it have confused the hell out of some people.

At the same time, I think I enjoyed The Yellow Sea more. It features spectacular fight scenes and foot chases, and Myung-Ga is a far more interesting, relatable, and quite frankly badass foil. I also enjoyed how it leisurely progresses from the story of a humble man trying to figure out the mechanics of committing a horrible crime into a frenetic blood-soaked mess. So watch whichever one you want. Or both.

This post is part of The 2012 Korean Cinema Blogathon, hosted by New Korean Cinema and cineAWESOME! Click here for more details. I’ve been a big fan of SK movies for the last 5-6 years, and I hope to cover more of them on the blog.

I don’t know what your favorite Rutger Hauer movie is. He’s made a few good ones. There’s always his iconic performance in Blade Runner. There’s also Split Second, a solid 1992 sci-fi flick that’s difficult to find on DVD. Not to mention his more recent starring role in Hobo with a Shotgun. But I’m here to talk about Redline, a 1997 sf thriller curiously available on Amazon Instant Video.

I think Rutger Hauer starred in a string of low-budget action movies in the nineties because he was having a midlife crisis. There is one major aspect of this movie that would appeal to an actor struggling with his own virility: breasts. Pert, young, natural, communist breasts. The kind you don’t see in movies anymore. The kind that make life worth living. In Redline, Rutger Hauer gets to make out with naked Russian chicks a lot, and even gets into a fight with one.

This movie is so low rent that Mark freaking Dacascos is the costar. If you don’t know who Mark is, I have four words for you: Kickboxer 5: The Redemption. That didn’t work? Okay, he played the titular Crying Freeman in a live action adaptation of Kazuo Koike’s manga. In Redline, he plays a man who never wears a t-shirt.

Redline is a science fiction thriller about John Anderson Wade (Hauer), an American who smuggles futuristic tech into Russia, until he and his girlfriend are betrayed and shot dead by his partner, Merrick (Dacascos). Wade is reanimated using a weird kind of experimental technology that leaves him grappling with immense physical pain, and is quickly embroiled in a I-can’t-remember plot that involves the entire power structure of Russia.

I don’t know if it was Rutger Hauer’s presence or the desperation of my own mind trying to justify a terrible course of action, but I left this movie satisfied despite a laundry list of complications. I watched it via Amazon Instant Video, where it was in a 4:3 aspect ratio and the audio was maddeningly out of sync with the video. The biggest complication of all, however, is that this movie kind of blows.

Redline is available on DVD and on demand at Amazon.com.

Takeshi Kitano, writer, director and star of the 2010 Yakuza movie Outrage, is a complex entity unto himself. I’ll resolve, then, to talk about this film without bringing in the complicating factors of his iconic past work and this being hailed as his return to proper form. Look Kitano up if you’d like, there’s a reason his reputation precedes him.

When I first heard about this movie and saw the promotional photographs of Takeshi grimly staring on, pistol in hand, I had it all wrong. I imagined Outrage as some kind of “old pissed off Yakuza versus the world” movie. Not the case. Kitano isn’t even the proper star of the film, considering how many plot points rarely involve him. His performance is often disarmingly charming, bordering on jovial. I blame the marketing team for misrepresenting this movie.

Outrage is a crime film about dishonor and nihilistic futility. In it we see boss after boss manipulate their underlings to suit their selfish purposes at each other’s expense. The plot gets so complicated you may begin lose track of who is betraying who, and for what grievance in particular. But that’s part of its maddening intrigue.

It’s not an unpleasant experience, watching this movie. I thank Kitano for keeping the runtime under two hours, as there’s a limit to how long something like this can amble before it grows tedious. Outrage flirts with that limit. There may even be some heavy petting.

One subplot in particular, involving a Ghanaian ambassador, is so rushed and punctuated with fades to black you can’t help but marvel at the creative desperation to detail a series of events which add little to the movie itself. The actor playing the ambassador is terrible, and while his portrayal isn’t at all racist, it’s uncomfortable in that patented Japanese way you’re probably used to. Maybe the actor shouldn’t have bugged his eyes out quite so many times, for starters.

There’s a plodding quality to Outrage which makes it stand out and enriches the performances within. It puts me in an odd place in that I’m not left feeling impressed, but I look forward to seeing the 2012 sequel, which is already in development.

Quick addendum: I know next to nothing about fashion and I’m barely competent at getting dressed in the morning, however: this movie taught me if you’re long in the tooth and not terribly in shape, a good Caesar haircut alone can make you seem more badass. Not sure why that works, but it does.

Outrage is available on DVD, Blu-ray and on-demand at Amazon.com.