As a story built on the often-told North-South Korea strife, this movie has less depth than JSA. As a movie focusing on pitching two mutually admiring heroes against each other, this movie falls short of some of John Woo's best. As a movie with a global proportion disaster to be averted, this movie has not quite reach the James Bond calibre. There is no romantic love line at all here, but quite touching sibling love depiction.
There is no ambiguity as to which of the heroes belong to which side. Lee Jung-jae (in "Il Mare", he played the trans-temporal lover of Jun Ji-hyun's character) plays the South Korean naval officer who, when recruited to do a special-agent type of task, chastened his superior for using material reward as a lure, stating in no uncertain terms that patriotism would be more than sufficient. Jang Dong-Kun (most recently "Wuji" or "The promise") plays the most wanted North Korean pirate leader who went astray when, as a young boy, his whole family was betrayed by people who promised to smuggle them into South Korean for a new life.
The plot and the action would be familiar to anyone who has seen James Bond movies. The venues are exotic, from Russia to Thailand. In the action department, the movie makers make sure that the audience get what they expect, in explosion, car case, awesome firepower, horrendous storms and a finale knife duel that is absolutely unnecessary but fully expected. The entire movie bursts with macho tension, except for the scenes of the reuniting brother and sister after 20 years, and the sister with only a few months to live. This turn out to be the most memorable scene in the entire move, well acted and genuinely touching.
There is no ambiguity as to which of the heroes belong to which side. Lee Jung-jae (in "Il Mare", he played the trans-temporal lover of Jun Ji-hyun's character) plays the South Korean naval officer who, when recruited to do a special-agent type of task, chastened his superior for using material reward as a lure, stating in no uncertain terms that patriotism would be more than sufficient. Jang Dong-Kun (most recently "Wuji" or "The promise") plays the most wanted North Korean pirate leader who went astray when, as a young boy, his whole family was betrayed by people who promised to smuggle them into South Korean for a new life.
The plot and the action would be familiar to anyone who has seen James Bond movies. The venues are exotic, from Russia to Thailand. In the action department, the movie makers make sure that the audience get what they expect, in explosion, car case, awesome firepower, horrendous storms and a finale knife duel that is absolutely unnecessary but fully expected. The entire movie bursts with macho tension, except for the scenes of the reuniting brother and sister after 20 years, and the sister with only a few months to live. This turn out to be the most memorable scene in the entire move, well acted and genuinely touching.