Nowhere To Hide

     It's only a few years since South Korea has emerged from martial law, so there's something eerily fascistic about Nowhere in Sight, a movie so amnesiac and ahistoric as to celebrate the wanton lawlessness and extreme violence of the homicide division of the Seoul police department. A murder in the city gives these cops a cheap excuse for running wild with sticks and bats, and this includes detective partners Kim and Woo, who race about on a 72-day blood-shower chase to capture the killer. Woo, of course, is named for Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo, and his partner might have well have been called Quentin. Lee Myung-Se's film is prime post-Tarantino with moments of homage also to Dirty Harry and an operatic climax in the rain swiped from spaghetti westerns. But mostly Nowhere to Hide is ultra-mod: slo-mo, fast-mo, computer games and music video cutting, slick and shiny, and those who like this sort of thing (mostly young viewers who swear by Hong Kong cinema) will have a razzle-dazzle good time.

GERALD PEARY
(December, 2000)

<--- back