Decision To Leave (Park Chan-wook)

[Ivan Drago]

IMDB / Wiki

[Ivan Drago]

I also loved this!

[Peng]

Magnificent style to spare with a purpose, getting us into the restless, tortured headspace of Park Hae-il's insomniac. His wooziness, from equal part dark neo-noir obsession and hopelessly head-over-heels romance, is rendered acutely by Park Chan-wook's disorienting direction, swooping and cutting so that even the most mundane features of police procedural genre are transformed into something that feels thrillingly new (I almost never want the interrogation to end). It also reflects the bubbling of attraction between the two leads so well, with Tang Wei in particular nailing a great balancing act between femme fatale unpredictability and heartbreaking romantic vulnerability every step of the way. 8.5/10

[Grouchy]

Is Park Chan Wook the most virtuoso filmmaker alive? Hard not to feel that way after this neo noir with pitch perfect atmosphere. What strikes me the most about his films is that there's always some shot composition, some cut or some musical or visual choice that's completely out of left field and works in ways almost no one else seems to discover. With Stoker and this one he also seems to be one of the few people currently working directly influenced by Hitchcock. Anyway, Decision to Leave is an excellent romantic crime film with a charismatic and relatable femme fatale at its center.