A police surveillance unit stakes out the streets to identify and
bring down an uncommon team of heist criminals whose expertise in
subterfuge comes from being schooled in the art of surveillance
themselves. Whose methods will ace the operation, whose subterfuge
will reign supreme?
Such was the great premise of Eye in the Sky, the original 2007 Hong
Kong film. The production (with Johnny Toh assistant Law Wing
Cheong at the helm) was a joy to watch as its concept demanded the
film be made as an old school heist film, i.e. a highly technical
double procedural, with the cop procedural in a head-on collision
with the heist procedural.
As with other remakes, Cold Eyes is a cinematic juggling act. How far
will it stick to the tried and tested before breaking new ground that
will justify its existence? The location is now Seoul and characters
take the subway instead of the electric tram but for all intents and
purposes, Cold Eyes is a plot point for plot point, character arc for
character arc remake of Eye in the Sky—right down to the annoying
let-down of setting up a proficient, surveillance-savvy heist crew in
the first act only to have the blindsided surveillance team catch on
to them because of an unbelievable rookie error.
When it does decide to innovate, the results are mixed. The criminal
mastermind here (Jung Woo-sung) seems to be a genius right out of a
recent Guy Ritchie action/thriller franchise. He plans everything out
by staring at a collection of maps and floor plans pasted on a wall
of his bachelor pad, then visualises the entire heist in his mind.
That’s good. In addition to his planning skills and natural genius,
he’s also a cold-blooded killer who frequently stabs people to
death with a fountain pen in this remake. That’s not good, given
the other gimmick of the original was the pure battle of wits and
white collar rivalry of the leaders of the surveillance team and the
heist team.
As with Korean cinematic offerings, Cold Eyes is slickly produced,
blessed with near Hollywood action budgets (though with sub-par CGI),
and very long. To the credit of its writing team, the film suffers
from none of the problems of the Overlong Korean Film. With each key
scene, plot, and arc uniformly extended from the original, there is
no danger of pacing issues.
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