Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Console best movie i've ever seen.

TeenzTen An action-packed slog

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Leofwine_draca NOWHERE TO HIDE is a much-hyped South Korean action thriller that follows a much-used template: a dogged detective who will stop at nothing to track down a master-criminal against whom he has a personal vendetta. It's the kind of slim, pared-down storyline that's kept the thriller genre alive for the past sixty years or so and shows no signs of flagging thus far, and when played out in conjunction with Myung-se Lee's ultra-stylish direction it really should work. Sadly, though, the resulting film is hollow and superficial in the extreme: very stylish, yes, and great to look at, but ultimately unfulfilling.Myung-se Lee's problem is that he's far too interested in his cinematography and not in his own story, which doesn't really go anywhere. Lots of recent films are centred around detectives pursuing bad guys through the streets; THE CHASER, for instance, with its superlative pimp-vs-serial-killer shenanigans. But they have to have more than just action to make them work: likable characters, for one, and realism, combined with peppery dialogue. NOWHERE TO HIDE looks great, but that's all it has to say for itself.The film is a jumble of frenzied editing ranging from extreme slow motion, missing images, fast cuts, freeze frames and plenty more. Combined with a pumping soundtrack and a great use of colour, it's a fascinating visual experience. But the dickhead detective and the sullen criminals he pursues through the back streets are singularly uninteresting and the various chase sequences quickly become repetitive. By the end, there's enough material to have ably filled a ten-minute short; but at a two-hour run time, it's just too little to sustain the interest. In the end, NOWHERE TO HIDE is a missed opportunity.

Guy NOWHERE TO HIDE was one of the first Korean films to make it to the West -- and it's a hell of a film. The plot - about a team of cops hunting an assassin - is utterly conventional but only serves to disguise how wild the film really is. Starting off in scratchy b&w - every frame a burst of aggression - before jumping into a mellow rain of colour as autumn leaves fall amid the pouring rain as the assassin strikes. It's nuts, but in a good way. Every ten minutes, just when you think it has settled down, the film will find something unexpected to do. It helps that the cops are demented - maybe ROK cops are? - and consider hanging a suspect upside down and swinging him backwards and forwards an acceptable way to get information. This isn't a film to watch for the story, but for the sheer excitement of its experimentation.

themaxdriver I rented this movie because one of the guys on this message board said that the matrix revolutions stole a scene from this movie. So i pop in the movie and i'm expecting to see some guys flying around kicking each other's a$$'s. The final fight has two simalarities with the matrix. 1. they fight in the rain 2. there is a close up of the guys clenching their fists.wow. it seems like they really ripped this movie bad. if you watch this movie from beginning to end, you will find that it is one of the lamest movies ever. the fights are not choreographed, the main guy, Woo, walks like a freaking ape, and the police use baseball bats and mace for weapons. the movie would have been better if they hadn't tried to use the slow motion effect all the time. it seems as though it was edited on a really old computer because of the terrible visual effects.Trying to say that the matrix ripped off this movie is like trying to say that back to the future was a rip off the time machine because of time travel, or star wars was a rip off of star trek because it takes place in space. just because a movie does some of the same things, doesn't mean that the idea was stolen.

Sean Choi Lee Myung-se is one of the most gifted directors of the contemporary "new wave" movement in Korean cinema. He is a director who's in love with the medium of film, and it shows in his dazzling Nowhere to Hide. The film's plot involves a standard cops and robbers chase, but that's not where its strength lies. This film doesn't bother itself much with "substance," e.g. richly developed characters with whom we can sympathize, a serious look at "the human condition," etc. Instead, Nowhere to Hide is all about style and the joy of making films. Lee's style is sort of an amalgamation of Wong Kar-wai (the visuals) and John Woo (the action), and Nowhere to Hide offers some sumptuous feasts for the eyes. To offer some salient examples: There is an early assassination sequence which is so beautifully shot and creatively edited that it plays out like an impressionist music video (and it also happens to be my favorite scene from any film of its year, 2000); There is a fight sequence which is done completely in shadows; And there is a final fist fight between a cop and robber in the rain that is wonderfully aesthetic. During many scenes of this film, Lee stretches, breaks, and otherwise "tweaks" the visual grammar of film to produce a work that is consistently challenging and thoroughly original. Seldom has "eye candy" been this sweet. This film might not have much by way of substance, but in terms of pure filmmaking craft and originality, it's pretty hard to beat.