Other Titles • Nowhere to Hide (2001) • Injeong sajeong bol geot eobtda
Synopses for Nowhere to Hide (1999)
1.
The most kaleidoscopic crime thriller you'll ever see. Nowhere to Hide is about a team of cops tracking down a murderous drug lord--but the plot is the only ordinary thing about the movie. Nowhere to Hide uses just about every visual trick imaginable: slow motion, rapid-fire editing, different film textures (from gritty black and white to luminous color), freeze-frames, as well as techniques that have only become possible with computers and that are impossible to describe. But the movie has more than visual razzle-dazzle: scenes go off in bizarre directions, the tone shifts radically from hyperviolence to total sentimentality (in one scene, the loose-cannon detective is brutally beating a handcuffed prisoner; moments later, he's as happy as a little boy when his sister gives him a pair of gloves), the characters are outrageously melodramatic. The soundtrack shares this amazing cinematic schizophrenia, featuring light pop songs, shrieking heavy metal, moody Spanish guitar, and soaring classical. The overall effect is dizzying, disorienting, but at the same time giddy and exciting. The closest American equivalent is Charlie's Angels; these are movies that have moved beyond story logic and character development into sheer sensory enjoyment; movies that push action-movie techniques to the point of becoming almost avant-garde, some insane hybrid of John Woo and Jean-Luc Godard. Not to be missed. --Bret Fetzer
(47 votes)
2.
NOWHERE TO HIDE, the sixth feature from Korean New Wave writer-director Lee Myung-Se (GAGMAN) is an arty police action film jam-packed with style and attitude. Fans of Asian directors Takeshi "Beat" Kitano and John Woo will recognize the iconographic character of Detective Woo (Park Joong-Hoon), a slouching, thuggish homicide cop in South Korea's port city of Inchon. Woo smiles like a mischievous child, but he carries a baseball bat in his car, and leads a stooge-like squad of cops brandishing iron nightsticks. Along with his straitlaced partner, Kim (Jang Dong-Kun), Woo embarks on a sleepless, months-long hunt for the brutal killer who murdered a drug kingpin on the city's centralized monument, 40 Steps. Woo and his gangster-like men violently clash with suspects in colorful freeze frames and slow-motion shots, accompanied by a pumped-up rock score. After being defeated in a slapstick dance-like fight, a drug runner leads Woo to a primary suspect's femme fatale girlfriend, Juyon (Choi Ji-Woo). The detective then begins an infuriating game of watch and wait. Full of visual panache and humor, Lee's stylish thriller climaxes in a glorious rain-drenched mano a mano between the brutally tenacious Woo and his elusive prey.
(39 votes)
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