70
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisA rush of a movie from South Korea that slips and slides from horror to humor on rivers of blood and offers the haunting image of a man, primitive incarnate, beating other men with an enormous, gnawed-over meat bone.
- Na captures at once the fragility of the human body and the deep-rooted darkness of the human soul. The Yellow Sea is easily one of the films of the year for underserved action-heads.
- 80EmpireKim NewmanEmpireKim NewmanMore startling than an unexpected punch in the noggin, Na Hong-Jin's unusual thriller could have the highest knife count this side of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. A violent thrill-ride to a dark new corner of Asian cinema.
- 80VarietyJustin ChangVarietyJustin ChangGushing more blood and possessing more stamina than any number of Hollywood hack-'em-ups, writer-director Na Hong-jin's pulse-pounding, mordantly funny genre piece is at times messily convoluted, yet serious and full-bodied enough to achieve a genuinely tragic dimension.
- 80The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawA deafening explosion of energy, gruesome violence and chaos.
- 70Village VoiceMichael AtkinsonVillage VoiceMichael AtkinsonIf anything, Na's film is too much of a good thing, exceeding credibility too often (the punching-bag hero is far too lucky - good and bad - and absorbs a hilarious amount of punishment) in its pursuit of despairing violence. But that's the Korean way, and Na nails down the bottom feeder realism while slouching toward video-game hyperbole.
- 60Time OutDavid FearTime OutDavid FearLike fellow countryman Park Chan-wook's vengeful epics, this man-on-the-run thriller knows how to deliver a rush; unlike those superior tales of lives on the edge, that's the only trick up its sleeve.
- The raging stamina, unrelenting violence, rapid-fire editing and truncated narrative all give one no pause for thought or even breath. By the time the central mystery is revealed in a nice twist, it gets swallowed in the messy, anti-climactic end.
- 40Time Out LondonTime Out LondonAfter a ruthlessly focused, almost-Hitchcockian first hour, Na’s film fans out into a flabby, multi-stranded gang war and loses all sense of purpose.
- The Yellow Sea is overkill in every sense.