Yesterday (2002)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Blistering performances.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Recap: 30 years after a top secret research project was shut down, a team of the Special Investigation tries to deal with the aftermath. Someone with intimate knowledge about it kidnaps and murders anyone who was involved (and the lead SI agent's son - well, almost anyway). The SI unit has little leads until the Chief of Police is kidnapped and his daughter, a police and scientist herself, seem to set them in the right direction.As the investigation continues the team discovers how complicated investigations and life can be were cloning, cryo-treatment and genetic design is possible.Comments: Does the recap sound confusing? It did to me, but with a lot of potential. But in the end the movie did not help to resolve anything, instead leaving me more confused than ever. Or, quite frankly, I lost interest somewhere along the movie and don't really care that I didn't catch anything.One problem, the main problem in my opinion is that a lot, seems to be most of it actually, of the dialog is carried out by radio or phone. It is also disconnected from what is shown, so it's very hard to know who says what, and who belongs to which group. To meddle with matters even more the dialog changes between using names and numbers without really saying who is who. And as a last addition there appears to be some cuts in time as the dialog runs along, giving the appearance of some people being able to be everywhere at once.In effect, I wasn't sure who was firing at who and why, in the movies shoot-outs. There are a few of them, but not sure why really. Quite nicely done though.Visually, it is very beautiful. Mostly set in very dark and damp places there are some few bright futuristic specks of light and neon, and advanced buildings. Also we have some ghostly images of memories intertwine with the present. Very nicely done, purely visually, too. But it did not help explain or straighten anything. Only confused me more as you had to keep track of what did happen in the present and what did happen in the past.Not really bad, but can't really recommend it anyway.4/10

Yesterday is an entertaining sci-fi movie. It's very near to being an excellent film, and in fact is a vast improvement on many recent Hollywood sci-fi flicks. It works really well because the science-fiction takes a back seat to realism and characters.Yesterday is well acted by the entire cast. It's slow moving, and has a lot more in common with say Heat or Pulp Fiction than your I-Robots or your Serenity's, which may put people off a little. Characters reveal themselves in totality gradually, avoiding you from being able to figure out the entire plot machinations like you could in a more obvious movie.Action in the movie though sparse is terrific, handled brilliantly from a point of direction and filled with power and excitement. Very few outlandish special effects are used outside of explosions, all of which serves to ground it further in reality.It's unfortunate then that the film is written in such a way that whenever something big needs to happen, reality gets thrown out of the window. The last twenty minutes turn the film into some over-the-top slasher type premise as serial-killer Goliath systematically demolishes the entire cast other than the two key leads. This is honestly intensely frustrating, as the movie bears the unfortunate hallmark of some Asian cinema that the leads are a little difficult to relate to. It's nowhere near as bad as the earlier Natural City, where I seriously didn't care about anybody in the entire cast, but the main female lead is really bland, and consistently out-shined by the other key female character May, who is preposterously killed off in a frustratingly stupid fashion in the final sequences, almost like Wash in Serenity. You'll watch this and think 'God, you could've sent her off a bit better than that, she would've easily dodged that'. I can't help but feel she got written out so the audience would concentrate on the central lead instead.This is a good movie, and outside of the way it happens, the end is satisfying. If it wasn't for the slightly desperate final 20 minutes then this could've been a contender for one of the best films I've watched this year. Unfortunately this movie spends 100 minutes as a police thriller then turns into a cheesy slasher movie in the last 20. The ending is great from a story point of view, but the actual events feel more Freddy vs Jason than the Seven meets Heat thriller the rest of the film serves up. It's definitely worth a watch, but be warned it is long, slow and the ending is like suddenly skipping channels mid-film.

It begins with a action-filled sequence that really wakes your interest and curiosity, but the questions that arise in the beginning doesn't get answered, only more and more questions and that is very annoying. The first hour is spent not knowing a lot at a very high speed, and the rest of the film has too many slow spots where the background and the plot is revealed only by dialog, breaking the tempo and flow down to a very low pace.At several times I wondered whether I really began watching at the beginning, or if this was a sequel to a film where all the characters were introduced... Although, refreshing to see a Korean film, not a complete waste.

it seems south korea has become the major market for good, fun action movies. we've seen a couple of good ones since "shiri" came along. "yesterday" is no exception. tight, powerful action sequences bound together by a futuristic plot, with art direction a la "blade runner" make this movie a contender for one of the best action films of the past years. "yesterday" has the sense to be contemporary, thrilling and without resolving to unnecessary subplots - it is clean, pure fun. lovers of asian action cinema- you will not be disappointed!!!