Made by the same director who directed the Vengeance trilogy and the Handmaiden.

The actress, Tang Wei, is phenomenal. Throughout the movie you cannot make up your mind as to whether she is the victim or a femme fatale or if those two are even meaningfully distinguishable. The ease and authenticity with which she (and the actor) acts in some of the intense scenes is quite disturbing.

The editing and sound is smartly used to convey the insomnia of the actor. There are a lot of jump cuts and the sound fades in and out in sync with the attention of the detective character.

The cinematography of the movie goes from being neurotic and chaotic to serenely beautiful. If you completely muted the music and only looked at the scenes you’ll be able to predict the emotional state of the characters. There is a scene in the middle of the movie when the plot reaches an emotional crescendo which is appropriately set in a snow-storm atop a mountain and then when things come to a crushing end you find yourself on a forlorn, windy beach stuck between swirling sand and rising tides.

There is a very cunning use of language to portray deception and subtext. The actress is not a native Korean speaker and often says seemingly incorrect things. But you can never tell if the slip is genuine or intentional.

There is a constant undercurrent of tragedy throughout the movie. You constantly expect something to go wrong and the the tension just keeps on pulling and stretching until the very end. The tension is further accentuated by several recurring metaphors and motifs; old Korean songs keeps haunting you and there is no way for me to connect these to the plot. The movie is so maddeningly good that it bothers me that I’ll never be understand these fully.