Cold Eyes is a fast paced, exciting, highly entertaining, high tech crime thriller set in Seoul Korea, with a first rate cast and a brilliant co directorial team. The crime thriller genre so long the domain of James Bond has met its match. East meets West seamlessly in this first time co directorial debut by Kim Byung-seo, who brings his experience as a cinematographer (Dangerous Liasions) brilliantly to work with writer/director Cho Ui-seok (The World of Silence). The sequencing, storyline and acting is superb in this complex crime drama full of unexpected twists and double crosses. Filmed in Korean the storyline translates easily and subtitles are almost unnoticeable. It is a gripping visual and multimedia journey with just the right balance of suspense, humor, character development and intelligence.

At the heart of the story is young Ha Yoon-ju (Han Hyo-joo), the new recruit to the Seoul Police surveillance team, a crack team requiring unique abilities and skills to track down ruthless criminals. Ha Yoon-ju is put to the test by Detective Hwang (Seol Kyung-gu) before joining the team and then tested to the limit by criminal mastermind James (Jung Woo-sung) and his murderous band of criminals with their mysterious leader. Kim and Cho use cutting edge cinematography and editing techniques that are timed to the spilt second to convey the detailed and complex relationships between the criminal gang and the police detective forces as they manipulate complex intel operations to achieve their ends.

Cold Eyes is a brilliant remake of Eye In The Sky (2007) where modern surveillance techniques and high-tech intelligence is used by both the villains and the good guys as part of the arsenal to commit and solve crimes. This spellbinding film utilizes sweeping images of Seoul, intimate close ups, chase scenes, and intricate editing of image and sound to keep the audience fully engaged.

Cold Eyes, starring Han Hyo-joo, Seol Kyung-gu, Jung Woo-sung, Lee Jun-ho, and Jin Gyeong. premiered at TIFF13 in Toronto and will certainly be a huge international box office hit with the potential for international awards.

Moira Romano