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Bromantic thriller involving sleeper agents tasked with silencing North Korean defectors. Well-made but mostly by the numbers plot enlivened by Korean favorite Song Kang-Ho (The Host, Memories of Murder) acting among weaker supporting characters. Some nice action scenes with co-lead Kang Dong-won keep things moving at a brisk enough pace. Story doesn't aim very high and wraps with a finish that's a little too tidy, despite the two hour runtime.

Forgettable but ultimately fun, probably for Korean thriller fans only. Jang Hoon also directed the similarly competent Korean War drama The Front Line (2011).

Disturbing and well-crafted portrait of a broken family dealing with their agony and desperation by inflicting it upon others, as well as themselves. Japanese stalwart Koji Yakusho (13 Assassins, Kairo) leads as the vicious, alcoholic father on the hunt for his missing daughter, whose pain is more complicated than her absent parents know. Multilayered narrative and hyper-kinetic editing style reveal tortured emotions behind the graphic violence, although director Tatsuya Nakashima (Confessions, Kamikaze Girls) still has problems drawing uniformly strong performances from a young cast and spends too much time with a secondary character infatuated with Kanako. Utilizing animation, musical montage, and nearly every possible cinematic tool, the film drains the audience until we are as resigned to Kanako's fate as she is. Easily Nakashima's best film, although still flawed. Fans of Japanese aesthetics may love it.