COLD EYES (NC16)
120 minutes
***½
This remake of the Hong Kong thriller Eye In The Sky (2007) sees Ha Yoon Ju (Han Hyo Joo) having a phenomenal memory and that comes in useful in her job.
The rookie member of a police surveillance unit works under the brilliant chief detective Hwang (Seol Kyung Gu) and alongside fellow cop Squirrel (Lee Jun Ho). Their target is the elusive and ruthlessly efficient ringleader James (Jung Woo Sung).
Writer-director Cho Ui Seok and co-director Kim Byung Seo leave their stamp on the award-winning Hong Kong film's basic premise of a surveillance team on the trail of a master criminal.
Jung brings a certain cool factor to his turn as the meticulous and vicious James and Han gets you to root for her as the tenacious rookie facing her first big case. She has to learn the code of conduct with regard to surveillance and, naturally, she is put in situations which test her ability to strictly follow orders and keep to the mission's goal.
The interplay between the characters is also deftly sketched out, from the teacher-student dynamic between Hwang and Ha to a nail-biting encounter between James and Ha late in the film.
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