The Thieves

An all ensemble cast forms the backbone of this heist film which was the top grossing South Korea film in 2012. The target of the theft is a diamond owned by a top Chinese mobster in Macao. Two teams from China and South Korea, with intertwined pasts and romances,  join forces to pull it off. It is very obvious that the film has been heavily influenced by the Ocean's Eleven series of movies but you still have to execute well to make it a watchable movie. Director Dong-hoon Choi has done exactly that as you spend couple of hours watching beautiful people acting cool and pulling off insane stunts. Neeraj Pandey can learn much from this film.

Rating: * * +

Poster Via Wikipedia.

Il Mare

Yet again the South Koreans show us that they have the romance genre down to pat. Eun-joo (Gianna Jun) leaves a note behind in the postbox of Il Mare which is the name of a quaint little cabin that is the vortex of this film. Little does she realize that note makes its way through the time space continuum to Sung-hyun (Jung-Jae Lee), a resident in the past. The wheels of time start to spin and a romance ensues across time-scapes.

It is evident that this film's echo is heard very clearly in Ditto but Il Mare speaks more eloquently to the viewer. The only knock against the flick is the poor soundtrack.

Rating: * * *