Sometimes the algorithm works. I only came across Nowhere To Hide (1999) when I was looking up “Similar Movies to” The Wild Goose Lake (a Chinese neo-noir that was a recent fave) on Apple. Wong Kar-wai stylistic comparisons for a South Korean crime thriller, images of dudes punching each other drenched in the rain, I’m clicking to rent. After the first twenty minutes of Nowhere To Hide, I was blown away by the over the top style, from the black-and-white introduction of the two cops – Detective Woo (Park Joong-hoon) and Kim (Jang Dong-gun) – sparring with gangs, frames dissolving, pausing, tracking across choreographed figures in a shot. Then the key incident of the film’s plot, when an assassin (Ahn Sung-ki) kills a business man on the “Forty Steps” in the rain while the Bee Gees’ haunting ‘Holiday’ plays on the soundtrack, which is so beautifully orchestrated and swooningly visual. Yet as the movie follows the detectives and their loutish crew tearing up the city on a long manhunt for the killer, I was a little bit worn out by it, the style could only take me so far. My main drawback was that I thought the film would spend time with Ahn Sung-ki’s assassin character, and the actor has a clear, commanding presence, but he remains a cipher; it would be like if To Live And Die In LA only kept Willem Dafoe as a silent, intermittent image rather than giving scenes that invite us into the character and his world. Apparently the South Korean version is longer than the international cut, so maybe some character scenes and context were left out? Joong-hoon has a brutish if cheeky quality, but his character can grate after awhile, even with the balance of the handsome charmer Dong-gun. Still, director Lee Myung-se and his collaborators turn this basic action thriller plot into high aesthetic style, giving some sequences a neo-noir romantic charge, even pausing one scene to dissolve into an impressionistic painting of that scene. Though most of the mood is also determined by a heavy electro-rock song that powers the movie as both score and reference (Detective Woo sings the lyrics at one point). The charged climactic fist-fight in the rain and the mud is also a strong, memorable sequence. Available to rent on iTunes. I’m intrigued to see more of the director’s work and lather up that sumptous style (over substance). Recommended.
VHS Tracking 