Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THE AGE OF SHADOWS
Cert 15 Running time 140mins ★★★
Immerse yourselves in this epic espionage thriller, set in the back streets of Seoul, where heroic Korean resistance fighters struggle against the brutal Japanese occupying regime of the 1930s.
The freedom fighters try to recruit a former friend-turned-collaborator – they want the police captain to smuggle a stash of explosives across the border from China.
Korean cinema is the sixth biggest market in the world with a gross box office revenue of more than one-and-a-half billion dollars. Fuelled by this success, it’s increasingly making movies designed to appeal to audiences in the West.
So while there is plenty of flag-waving derring-do for the home crowd, this also the moody style of Hollywood film noir and the music of Louis Armstrong.
We’re hooked into the story with the first big action set piece, which riffs on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, though ultimately this is only a shadow of that ageless classic.