Disappointment for a huge fan!

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

"Nowhere to Hide" is a film unlike any other I have seen, and likely unlike any you have seen either. It is a film alive with the possibilities of cinema, and not afraid to stretch the boundaries between pulp and art.The story centers on a detective named Woo, and his partner, Kim. Woo is a hard-living bulldog of a cop with not a little Popeye Doyle in him--he even wears a funny squashed cap, though it is a fishing hat rather than a porkpie. Kim is a by-the-book family man. Together, they attempt to track down a murderer over the course of several weeks. The plot is little more than a succession of action, chase, and stake-out scenes as they work their way through the killer's accomplices until they find the man himself. Their investigation is accomplished through plenty of illegal beatings and searches-without-warrants, but somehow the characters remain likable and entertaining to watch, due largely to the strong, theatrical performance of Park Joong-hoon in the central role. Humor is also sprinkled liberally throughout, both brilliant physical gags and a few knowing verbal jokes, creating a movie full of action and fun.But the film is only really about this plot to the extent that it allows the director to play around with the possibilities of film-making. Lee takes great joy in cutting up action sequences in new and exciting ways, crafting a style somewhere between John Woo and Wong Kar-Wai in its brilliant use of the camera. He makes potentially simple sequences new and exciting through the use of slow motion, quick cuts, and "jump dissolves" in combinations never before seen. He goes back and forth between lovingly dwelling on falling leaves and snow flakes to slicing swords and swinging fists, endowing each with unique beauty and cool.The two stand-out sequences in the film are probably the first murder scene and the final showdown. The first murder takes place at "the 40 Steps" and attains a bizarre, haunting beauty against the background of bright yellow leaves and falling rain, all set to the BeeGee's early hit "Holiday." The final showdown is again in the rain, this time pouring down in steel sheets as Woo and the murderer face each other mano a mano. A strain of "Holiday" floats briefly through the soundtrack, as the character's fists fly super-fast then super-slow. (Incidentally, this scene was clearly an influence on the final fight in The Matrix Revolutions.)The film has been criticized for having an unclear plot and lacking character depth. These things are mostly missing, true, but it is only because the director deliberately chose not to focus on them. Here is how he describes the point of his movie:"In a Monet painting," Lee says, "the theme is not the water lily. The water lily is just the object to paint light upon. As it floats, we see its reflection on the water, and that is what we call painterly. My intention is the same. In this film, I wanted to show the filmic. The story and the characters are not the main focus of my film. Movement is. Movement enters the other elements in this film to create kinetic action."The film, then, should be viewed in this spirit and not as a simple action film. If you approach this movie as an exercise in innovative style and gleeful genre pastiche (the movie shows clear influence from John Woo, The French Connection, and Sergio Leone--including the harmonica line from Once Upon a Time in the West), you will find yourself awed and delighted. Looking for deeper meaning, however, is futile: the style IS the substance.

Emblazoned on the cover of the UK DVD release for 'Nowhere to Hide' is a line of text taken from a newspaper review claiming it is "a sure-fire hit with fans of Hard Boiled." Written on the back is another similar exclamation, stating "Is the world ready for the next John Woo?" In terms of marketing they certainly picked their strategy yet it's an extremely misleading tag. In fact, I'm not sure either of those quotes come from people who have actually seen it, because this is more of a Dirty Harry style cop thriller than a Chow Yun-Fat shoot 'em up with a body count so astronomical it's a miracle there's anyone left alive in East Asia.The story (what little of it there is) revolves around two Detectives, Woo and Kim as they attempt to track down a killer named Chang Sungmin. And that's all you need to know really because there's very little in the way of expanding on this in the film whatsoever. The murder committed at the start which triggers the hunt is given no explanation or motive, simply brushed off as 'drug related' and the rest of the running time seems committed to sticking in as many fancy camera tricks as possible and this is where it all falls flat."Nowhere to Hide" you see, wants to be cool. Desperately. It wants to be spoken of in the same breath as Tarantino and it yearns for this hipster status so much it falls flat on it's face, the posturing braggard's mask slipping and revealing the sweaty nerd underneath. Just look at the characters walking in slow motion towards the camera with rock music playing behind them, the whole sorry enterprise just screams "LOVE US" so much it makes you cringe. And this is carried over into leading man Joong-Hoon Park's performance. He's one of these stereotypical 'bad guy' cops you see that defies the regulations and matches it with a cocky swagger. And this loosely translates as him beating people up, threatening women and setting his face to maximum leer and gurn mode throughout while his attempt at swaggering has him walking like a hunched over prat for the whole movie.One area it does succeed however is in the dizzying showmanship of the numerous cinematography gimmicks on display. The first five minutes for instance are filmed entirely in black and white and there are loads of intriguing tricks littered throughout, providing a pulsing sense of adrenalin that the plot cannot provide. It may go overboard at times (do we really need to have the shot of several policemen running into a hiding place in Matrix style slow motion?) but this flashy excess does help it stand out from the crowd.In short then, not a successful movie. If you want a good Asian cop thriller, ignore this and go straight for Infernal Affairs. If you've already seen it, just watch it again. This is no substitute at all. The camera tricks may provide a good talking point, but the irritating lead, non-existent story and frankly rather rubbish action scenes let everything down. Style over substance to a T.

When I saw the rating this movie received here, I was disappointed. Admitted, there's no plot worth talking about, but technically, this movie just swept me off my feet. The editing, the use of music and the camera-work are simply incredible. Every frame fits perfectly. Also, the humorous approach this movie takes to its fight scenes is something out of the ordinary. Two men fighting on a rooftop, they go into a clinch, no-one seems to be able to wrestle the other one down, so they stumble around like this, and just when you think, "this looks almost like a dance", presto, the music changes to a waltz. In the next shot, we see the two men hitting each other with things lying around, but we only see their shadows, just like in the Indonesian shadow puppet theater. This movie challenges its viewer to break up with the habitual way of perceiving action in film, maybe some folks don't like that.As Sean Choi put it in his comment: All style, no substance? yes, but what style!

"Nowhere To Hide" is absolutely one of the most visually stunning movies I've ever seen. Every scene is a cinematographic masterpiece. Myung-se Lee is a master of effectively using "particle storms" ... falling leaves, rain, snow, flowing sheets. Iparticularly like the ways he use contrast, high and low. While Lee uses high contrast, black & white scenes and low contrast, grainy shots, I like the contrast between scenes. I like the high contrast between innocent scene (falling leaves and the little girl hopping down the stairs) and violent scene that follows (hard rain and murder on the very same stairs). He effectively use low contrast between the good guys and the bad guys. Detective Woo's father told him, "If you don't want to become a gangster, you need to become a cop. This is a MUST SEE movie.