The Couchpotatoes I am pretty sure in South Korea this movie will score higher than I rated it. When it's in your own language it's always easier to follow. And Korean is not a great language to listen to when you're not understanding it. It's sounds like they are always angry when they speak. The movie is nicely shot though. But the major problem I had with it was that it was too long and it took a really long time to become interesting. You could easily cut out the first hour of the movie where nothing major happens. I started getting bored actually. But the second part of the movie is way better, I would say from about where they are in the train. If the whole movie would be at that level of intensity I would have scored it higher. Most of the actors were good, some a bit lesser. All in all it's worth a watch. From the Asian movies I watched the Koreans are for sure the best ones.

Leofwine_draca THE AGE OF SHADOWS is a cracking period thriller that comes to us courtesy of South Korea. The setting is the 1920s and it's a period of Japanese occupation, in which resistance members are doing their best to bring down the Japanese government. I'm not sure why some describe the plot as complicated, because this is straightforward stuff indeed, albeit dense. It is even predictable at times, but that matters little when the production values are so lush and refined. The film plays out a cat and mouse game between the Japanese and the resistance, told from the point of view of a man caught in the middle.There's very little to dislike about this expertly-directed movie from Kim Jee-woon, the man who previously made the likes of I SAW THE DEVIL and THE LAST STAND. The action scenes are fluid and the opening shot of the soldiers jumping from roof to roof is jaw-droppingly artistic and refined. The running time is a little overlong but there are some great set-pieces here in which the violence isn't skimped upon. The half-hour train interlude has rightly been marked out as the film's highlight, a masterwork in suspense that reminded me of the bar scene in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. The film's exemplary cast includes a cameoing Lee Byung-hun alongside TRAIN TO BUSAN's Gong Yoo and the always excellent Song Kang-ho.

Mek Torres Well, that was a lot of fun. The Age of Shadows is a spy thriller that is basically a ticking bomb and once things go wrong, it just gets brutal and chaotic. The set up for these characters and their plot is well put together enough to be engrossing. And the set pieces are just excitingly executed. The film is unafraid of showing something terrible from their consequences. Though there is one point at the third act where I wished the film had ended. It gets to feel a little too long as it goes on, but man, the train sequence alone is one hell of an exercise for suspense. The production is also too impressive and the acting is quite engaging. Overall, it's a dark and brutal, yet quite an edge of your seat cinematic thrill ride.

alexdeleonfilm Mil Jeong (밀정 ~ The Age of Shadows). Viewed at 2016 Venice FilmFestival. Tremendous Korean epochal drama about life and resistance under the oppressive Japanese occupation in the early decades of the century. Director Kim Jaewoon really knows how to set up drama and suspense mixed with blazing action. There was so much in this film that I felt like I was watching a Beethoven symphony. Dark Sepia toned photography used to good effect enhances period feel. Musical soundtrack employs jazz and adrenaline tensor stretches and the final shootout in the train station is orchestrated deftly to Ravel's Bolero.139' running time is long and winds up with several anticlimactic codas but never lets you out if its grip. For Koreans this is clearly a film with heavy patriotic messages. The final theme is "Don't let your failures stop you -- build on them and rise to the next level" -- until victory is achieved. I would love to see this film with a Korean audience and would expect to see people on their feet cheering at the end... A young Italian I met afterwards said he loved it even though he knows nothing of the history involved. I could easily see why -- in a way this is something like a Kimchee spaghetti western and charismatic actor Kang-ho Song, 49, has got to be the Korean equivalent of John Wayne, or at least, Robert Mitchum.