COLD EYES (Korea, 2013)
Director: Choi Eui-seok
Starring: Sol Kyung-gu, Jung Woo-sung, Han Hyo-joo, Lee Joon-ho, Kim Byung-ok, Jin Kyung

“Remember everything,” Hwang (one of this year’s guests, Sol Kyung-gu), the chief of the Special Crimes Unit surveillance squad tells a fresh young recruit (Han Hyo-joo, who has won two Best Actress awards for her performance). That could go for the audience, too. Rocketing by at 500 plot points per second, this is a high-tension thrill ride where one glance away from the action unfolding on screen can leave you flailing in the dust, three plot twists behind. It’s a three-way race against time between Hwang, the rumpled middle-aged surveillance guru; James, the no-excuses criminal efficiency expert who’s pulling off a string of super-sophisticated heists before he retires; and Ha, the nervous new recruit who’s eager to prove she’s got what it takes, even if that means she having to take dumb risks. A remake of Johnnie To’s Hong Kong hit Eye in the Sky (2007), it became a surprise box-office smash last summer, turning To’s taut low-budget thriller into an epic of nonstop suspense. Watch for a cameo by Eye in the Sky star, Simon Yam, right before the credits roll.