All eyes are wide open for this slick as they come South Korean actioner about a highly skilled surveillance team within the Korean Police Forces Special Crime Department, that’s on course to set this year’s New York Asian Film Festival on fire.
Following my coverage from last years NYAFF, it has to be said, this is something refreshingly different for the festival to include, but it’s not hard to see why they have. The story starts with a solid 15 minute sequence of a rookie cop undergoing a test of her observational skills. She passes and becomes the latest member of a high-tech surveillance team who’s job is to sit in the shadows and track down dangerous criminals. This leads us to James, a meticulous criminal and his gang of highly skilled robbers. Together they pull off a quite fascinating and smooth heist that sets up for a showdown between our two opposing sides.
With a solid premise, strong performances from all the cast and some quite tantalising cinematography, Cold Eyes is a great way to open your festival viewing this year. There are very little flaws with the film, but let’s start with the only one you need to concern yourself; the subtitles. Being as smart and action driven as this film it, the subtitles, at times, pass by far too quickly to fully take in what’s being said and some are even none existent. While you get the gist of what’s going on, it doesn’t make this any less frustrating in this near-2 hour film and without the luxury of being able to go back and re-read certain lengthy texts, it grows increasingly frustrating.
Now that’s out the way, time to move on to the good, and how much there is! There is, quite simply, some phenomenally innovative camera work during the course of the film which highlights exactly why it was nominated (but sadly missed out on) for best cinematography at the 2014 Asian Film Awards, but there’s joy yet for the film in winning Best Editor for Shin Min-kyung—very deserved. The cast was equally impressive. New comer, Han Hyo-joo shone brightly in her role as the rookie cop joining the division which earnt her numerous nominations and one victory for Best Actress. While the equally impressive Jung Woo-sung took much praise and nominations for his supporting role as the mysteriously dangerous James. The other three stand out performances were Jin Kyung as determined Department Head, Lee, Sol Kyung-gu as Chief Hwang and Lee Jun-Ho as Squirrel. The story never panders to anything other than making sure it stays on track to what’s keeping us interested. No out of place love story, no pointless family problem side-plots. It refreshingly focuses soley on our characters and their mission, because that’s all this impressive film needs to do to keep us interested.
This non-stop, blink or you’ll miss something low-budget thriller became a surprise box office hit in Korea last summer, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see this remake of Johnnie To’s Hong Kong hit Eye in the Sky get the Hollywood revamp, and it could completely work. We’ve seen proven hits in the same vein as Cold Eyes in Hollywood before and it has a very ‘Enemy of The State‘ feel to it, without the whole evil government part. If this is what’s known as low-budget, it would be fantastic to see what director’s Jo Ui-seok and Kim Byung-seo could have done with some real money power behind it. What the directors between them manage to give us is an electrifying film full of brilliant set designs which are complemented by this thoroughly enjoyable (though familiar) plot. If there’s only one thing that you could ask for from the film, it’s to have much more like it.
Rating: This high stakes cat-and-mouse like game will keep you engaged for its entire 2 hour running (7/10).
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