The Yellow Sea

Na Hong Jin's The Yellow Sea (South Korea, 2010) - A desperate would-be assassin from a little-known Korean-Chinese community becomes the unlikely moral center of "The Yellow Sea," a breathtakingly brutal man-on-the-run thriller with a trenchant basis in gutter-level reality. Gushing 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. Though less of a smash than Na's 2008 debut, "The Chaser," pic has grossed a solid $17 million since its chart-topping local bow in December, and deserves a major push beyond Eastern markets. 2011CANucr, 2011PIFAN, 2011SEA. RATING: 9.