Tuesday, December 31, 2013

NEW WORLD

Closing out 2013 with NEW WORLD - a top notch organized crime thriller. Imagine THE DEPARTED/INFERNAL AFFAIRS taking a completely different turn in events but with just as much drama & tension. This is the kind of film Hollywood has forgotten how to make, instead relying on bloated budgets and flashy CGI. Speaking of CG, the few composites that are in this film are not very good but luckily the plotting & performances take center stage. I did sense something aesthetically different about this film and realized that NEW WORLD was shot digitally (and with the Red One no less) whereas most Korean films that I admire were shot on 35mm film. In this case I think it worked well to inject a contemporary immediacy to the South Korean dominance of modern techniculture (and cinema, in my opinion).