Novo Mundo

I am surprised that more people (especially my friends from South Korea) haven't reviewed this excellent movie so far. Perhaps they know of better Korean cinema to view and review!! I for one am from India (settled in the US) and big fan of Korean films, which were introduced to me by a Korean friend of mine during my graduate school days here in the US. Anyhow, this is the only Korean movie I could lay my hands on in a theater close to me (I generally see Korean movies on Netflix or home video). Perhaps it is my excitement of having watched a Korean movie in a movie theater after so long which has me biased in favor of this film. But I think not, as the rating right now on IMDb is 7.7/10. Anyways, here goes.

This is an amazing movie. Like the only other reviewer here has said, it mixes elements of "The Godfather" with "The Departed". It also reminded me of a Hindi art house movie which is not so well known (unfortunately) called "Droh Kaal" (1994 by director Govind Nihalani). Park Hoon-Jung being an accomplished writer (I loved his "I saw the devil"), does craft an original and engaging story. Violence is heavy handed when it is depicted and makes you cringe, but I don't mind that personally. I loved the costumes (every gangster in the movie wears designer suits which should be the envy of Wall Street executives). In fact, its the law enforcement officials who are comparatively shabbily dressed. The feel and atmosphere is subtly captured by cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon. I love his camera work, which was only recently at display in "Stoker" (by Park chan-wook), which I saw the day it was out. It was also a treat to see Choi min-shik ("Oldboy") again after "I saw the devil".

Overall, the movie kept me on the edge of my seat and was really entertaining. It is definitely much better than what Hollywood is churning out these days (with a few exceptions of course). Let me hope they don't butcher my favorite "Oldboy". I would highly recommend "New World", please do go and see it in a theater to really get the feel (like I said earlier, the cinematography is top-notch and needs to be seen on a big screen to be believed!).

what a great Korean movie! the screenplay is shockingly and amazingly good. the scenario, the twists of the plots...OMG, just like a Russian artifact egg, so many smaller eggs one after another hidden inside another; a perfect onion, so many layers inside one after another, so subtly and so purposely wrapped each other. this is by far the most fantastic undercover film ever made after 'the infernal affair' and the adaptation 'the departed'. the special effects and the stunt of this film are also top notched. thank god there's no disgusting overly used visual effects done by computer, but more convincing stunts. the performances of all the actors, female or male, are also did great jobs. pay attention to the guy who played with the plant leaves, broken it, then sneakly turned the vase around a little bit to hide the broken leaf, that scene, well, was so good. the twists of the plot would make you sit up a bit straighter to the edge of your sofa or chair, 'cause it's that thrilling and suspenseful. love this movie and Hollywood, just give me a break, will you guys, don't adapt it into an inferior film again.

There are very few movies which makes you jump from your seat, clap (even though you are watching it alone in your laptop), entertained, excited and happy. I was lucky enough to go through all the above emotions on multiple levels while watching 'New World'. 2013 was a big year for cinema lovers. We saw the son of krypton resurfaced, we saw the Iron Legion and even the Wrath of Khan. Yet, 'New World', is the best movie I have seen in 2013, till date.

Now what makes 'New World' beat the big guns which came out this year. It certainly did not have the leverage of breath taking CGI, nor mind bending plot lines. It did not have any particular fan favorite tags like the super hero genre, apart from Min-Choi of Oldboy and I Saw The Devil fame, no one in the Western hemisphere knows the actors. The director cum writer, is relatively unknown. So what is so great about it? It is the actors, the characters, the screenplay, the haunting BGM, the cinematography, the art direction, the story and every single piece of this movie. It was epic for me. It was just lying around in my hard drive since last 3 weeks. Did not even care to go for it, even though Min-Choi was in it, and today I wanted to see a Korean flick, and bang!

The story has shades of 'The Infernal Affairs' trilogy, yet it differentiates itself with its characters and screenplay. It is enjoyable to watch. You get to see a lot of twists, more importantly enjoyable twists in this movie. It is shot stylishly and supported by an amazingly haunting background score. Cinematography and art direction are astonishing. It indeed makes you wanna stand in rain in front of the towering skylines of South Korea.

The acting is top notch. Every single major characters have been portrayed by the actors flawlessly. Min-Choi is 'just' and 'corrupted' just like a the 2 sides of a coin, and he gives a solid performance. This guy should go to Hollywood, he will own them. Lee Jeong is the one who plays the protagonist. I was surprised to learn that, this is his first movie ever, and at no point, he looked like a novice. The performance, I enjoyed the most was of, Jeong-min Hwang. As of today. I am a fan of this dude. Every single scene he is in, he steals the show. The friendship between his and the central character kinda managed to squeeze in a tear from my eyes.

This is the best movie I have seen this year. 10 on 10 Period!

I don't know if it was coincidence or these actors choose a great movie all the time but when I see a movie with Hwang Jungmin, who played Jeong Chang, or Choi Minshik, chief Kang, I automatically know that it's going to be a good movie.

I didn't like Lee Jungjae at times when he was trying to correctly pronounce each syllable, but he played the role superbly.

As for the story-line and how the conclusion of the movie unfolds, wow. I was lost in words. The same feeling I got when I watched Shiri about 13 years ago.

"When everyone turned their back on me, he called me a brother."

Awesome, Awesome, Awesome. No other word can better describe how the movie is.

There's nothing more to say in order to recommend it, but IMDb requires me to so here goes.

If this were made in Hollywood, we wouldn't even be calling it Korean Godfather or Korean Infernal Affairs or a cross between the two. It is its own beast and excels at the most fundamental aspects of film-making in a way even the aforementioned films weren't always able to.

It's not perfect, I'd give it a 8.5 out or 9 out of 10 if I really wanted to be critical but it manages to carve out a place for itself in one of cinema's deepest genres. We haven't seen this kind of heavily character drama driven take on the genre before (and lucky for us, it was done so well!).