70
Variety by Maggie Lee
The Berlin File boasts knockout action setpieces that provide an impressive big-budget showcase for Ryoo Seung-wan's technical smarts.
The Berlin File (베를린)
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
- South Korea
- 2013
- · 120m
Director
Ryoo Seung-wan
Cast
Ha Jung-woo,
Han Suk-kyu,
Ryoo Seung-bum,
Jun Ji-hyun,
Lee Kyung-young,
Kwak Do-won
Genre
Action,
Thriller
Pyo Jong-seong, a North Korean ghost agent, interrupts an illegal arms deal in Berlin, only to discover he has been betrayed. He and his wife, a translator at the North Korean embassy in Berlin, try to escape unharmed, as North and South Korean operatives relentlessly pursue them.
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What are critics saying?
70
The New York Times by Nicolas Rapold
As soon as The Berlin File takes flight with its exhilarating action set pieces, memories of any muddles evaporate amid the tension and vivid engagement with settings, from courtyards to fields.
70
Village Voice by Scott Foundas
The Berlin File keeps narrative coherence far down on a priority list that privileges expertly choreographed hand-to-hand combat, hair-raising stunt work...and such familiar genre accoutrements as secret rooms hidden behind bookshelves, shiny metallic attaché cases, and pens concealing fast-acting vials of poison.
50
Slant Magazine
The film is a sporadically entertaining, modestly ambitious shoot 'em up that frequently succumbs to spelling out its subtext.
50
Los Angeles Times
There is something sharp, exciting and more original tucked within The Berlin File — and it is in moments a sleek, crackling film — but it all feels somehow misshapen.
50
Los Angeles Times by Mark Olsen
There is something sharp, exciting and more original tucked within The Berlin File — and it is in moments a sleek, crackling film — but it all feels somehow misshapen.
50
Slant Magazine by Rob Humanick
The film is a sporadically entertaining, modestly ambitious shoot 'em up that frequently succumbs to spelling out its subtext.
40
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
The story feels fairly perfunctory — not to mention unnecessarily knotty — but the well-connected leads do their best to ground it. And while this one falls far short of the “Bourne” films that serve as an influence, the intense action scenes consistently deliver some solid genre jolts.
40
Time Out by David Fear
Though the director includes a few brief humdingers — a fight that involves a Rube Goldberg–ish tangle of wires; some munitions-fueled mayhem in a farmhouse — it’s not enough to keep viewers from wishing they were thumbing through a John le Carré novel instead.
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