YESTERDAY

An explosive prologue wastes no time in gripping the viewer, as an anonymous telephone caller summons a priest to a young boy's house. If the priest keeps the appointment, he's told the boy will live.

However, the police are quick to arrive outside the house and the caller and his accomplice soon flee across the neighbouring fields with the boy, the diminutive Hanbyul.

Using hi-tech tracking devices, the cops corner the two men in a remote country shack. A siege unfolds, led by Inspector Seok (Seung-woo Kim, REVERSAL OF FORTUNE) - who also just happens to be Hanbyul's frantic father.

When Seok and his fellow officers sneak into the shack via a secret underground passage, they are able to kill the two men in a bloody shootout. Alas, Hanbyul is left bloodied and fighting for his life.

Quickly racing on "One Year Later", YESTERDAY introduces us to police chief Kim In-soo, who is preparing for his final day on the force before retiring.

His daughter, the eminent forensic analyst Hui-su (Yunjin Kim, MILAE) arrives at his office on the morning, much to his surprise. She thanks Kim for inviting her to speak at a local seminar, and for the limousine escort he arranged for her at the airport. Oblivious to what she's talking about, Kim dismisses her comments as a bizarre jest.

Kim attends the seminar with Hui-su, warning her that he may need to leave early to prepare for his retirement party. Sure enough, as she conducts a speech - in English - on the common backgrounds shared by serial killers, Kim exits with his entourage … and walks straight into an ambush which sees his colleagues shot dead and him kidnapped in the back of a speeding car.

Meanwhile, on the borders of the country, Seok is busy with his team investigating the latest in a series of corpses that have been popping up every couple of months or so throughout the last year. Each one is the corpse of a doctor, and has been dumped along with a necklace identical to the one Hanbyul was wearing when he was abducted.

Seok receives a message from his boss asking him to lead the investigation into the chief's kidnapping. Seok initially refuses, but soon takes the case on when he learns that the chief's clothes have been found dumped … along with another identical necklace.

Upon arriving at the police station, Seok and his team begin to work on learning the identity of the kidnapper - who they are convinced is also their serial killer. Hui-su turns up there and tells Seok she wants to join the team and help get her father back. Seok and his team are reluctant to let her in - and tell her that the chances of her father still being alive are remote.

But as clues lead the team into a dangerous city area known as the "Ghetto" - home to a motley collection of criminals and immigrants - and suspects are assassinated by unknown snipers on rooftops or battered in smoky in nightclubs, Hui-su gradually becomes more involved by helping Seok and team to build a psychological profile of the killer.

Working together, Seok's team and Hui-su delve deeper into the murky underworld of the Ghetto in the hope of finding the chief, and discovering what all of this has to do with Seok and his son. The quest leads them to an old boat called Luca, and unearths a 30-year-old missing child case …

Along the way, we get lots of chaotic police radio banter and more shootouts than even John Woo could muster. Which makes YESTERDAY an often thrilling action spectacular, chock-full of gunplay and exciting chase sequences. But there's more to it than expertly staged action: each scene of the film has been meticulously crafted, with obsessive attention paid to the choreography, lighting and colour of each and every frame. It's quite clearly a labour of love on director Yun-su Jeon's part, and impresses greatly for being so.

Performances are strong throughout, with Seung-woo and Yunjin standing out as the likeable, believable leads. Carefully nuanced to fall in line with the highly stylised look of the picture, their performances at least loan some credible emotion to their roles.

The true stars of the film though are the aforementioned direction, the superlative visual design and slick editing.

Speaking of the visual design: the film is imbued with a dark yet stylish mood and look, lending it a very obvious nourish feel. This is further exemplified by the constant raining on the evening streets, the jazzy songs featured on the soundtrack, the understated incidental score, the detective's raincoats, the dimly lit cinematography and even the lead characters occasionally narrating over the action.

But the fact that YESTERDAY is based in the near-future, making great use of digital effects to showcase ultra-sophisticated police equipment (video messaging in cars; a metallic insect with a hidden camera in it), gives it an added edge. It also means that, with its mix of noir chic and futuristic leanings, the film YESTERDAY most closely recalls is BLADE RUNNER.

The plot is tight and densely woven, which makes it all the more remarkable that Jeon manages to wrap it up in less than 2 hours while still managing to cram those aforementioned shootouts in at regular 5 minute intervals. Even more impressively, he somehow manages to crowbar in sub-plots that anticipate problems with Chinese immigrants, comment upon the ethics of cryonics and tackles the thorny political matter of human cloning.

The only time this taut and exciting, visually stunning thriller falters is in the final 10 minutes where it clumsily tries to tie up loose ends and climaxes with a whimper instead of a bang. Still, it all ends with a very blatant moral: "Leaves fall on their own to protect the tree" (which makes sense, sort of, when you see the film).

YESTERDAY is presented on this Tartan UK disc in an uncut anamorphic 1.78:1 presentation.

Picture quality is excellent. Images are bold and sharp, boasting vivid colouring and strong blacks. For a film that relies heavily on it's dark visual style, the transfer is a solid one that never lets the side down.

Audio is provided in options of 2.0 and 5.1 Surround in the original Korean language (with a brief foray into English, with forced Korean subtitles). Optional English subtitles are at hand. Both audio mixes offer a fine playback.

An animated main menu leads to static menus offering audio set-up options and scene-selections, where the film can be accessed via 16 chapters.

There's no extras on offer - not even a trailer. It's a shame, as I'd have liked to have seen some background info into at least the visual design of the film.

Still, the presentation of the film is superb, as is the norm for Tartan releases these days. YESTERDAY is an above average action thriller with style to spare.

The disc is basic, but the film is worth catching regardless.

Review by Stuart Willis