Gyoseob

It's not necessary to have lots of action to make a movie a thriller, even though the genre is action-thriller. Before watching, expected lots of action. Even though not many action or fight scene was not involved, the movie made enormous tension throughout. The plot showed, the diplomatic, humanistic points and its clashes. How much trauma can make someone stuck in past is well depicted here. How a small personal debate and reporting can provoke someone or something or some group and what outcome it can bring, is also well depicted. How much courage it takes to go through a negotiation table and how to manage the tension throughout the negotiation is portrayed very cleverly.

This is a must watch for all to understand how the Convertion game is played upon Asians. From China to India converts are spreading the virus to infect other Asians.

The real players like America Europe Arab already inflected few Asians with religion and now these infected people are reaching out to others with greater risk The start is simple a group mission to convert Afgans to church gone wrong and missionary got trapped in a setup which is already converted long back and the price is to bring these missionary people back.

Long and short sequence how afgans wants to live life happily with or without America and how Koreans missionary are behaving American agents to convert people and got caught Well plan and played.

In 2006 a group of South Korean missionaries was taken hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The very conservative moslim Taliban are no friends of anything other than their own belief, and as soon as they find out that the hostages are not volunteers, as they make them believe, they give the other side a hard time to get them released. It results in a complicated poker game of exchanges of hostages, prisoners and money. Hyun Bin is almost like a Korean James Bond involved in this action drama that contains a few very gripping scenes. Especially one pursuit is very well made. The whole story is well told down to every detail.

I have to say the cinematography and landscapes was top-notch in this action drama thriller, however, it certainly was lacking in the action department. In the 108 min runtime, it's all pretty much dramatics with a few thrills and the very little action scenes here and there. The flow of the story was great, and all casting and performances were convincing. The score and direction was also very good. My main let-down was the lack of any real action, especially comparing this to similar films like The Covenant and Kandahar, plus I found the main narrative - the negotiator and the negotiations was a little underwhelming and didn't make much sense. Nevertheless, a decent one-time watch on a historical true-events story.

I'm an egyptian, don't know much about Afghanistan other than what's on the media (which is not true most of the time) but anyway i have that stereotypical image of Afghans and Taliban.

I like that the movie is based on a true story, the makers did not hide the fact that the missionaries were going "to spread Christianity" in a "strict Muslim country" and they showed both sides of Afghanistan, kind people who believe in peace and respect to all humans and extremists who use violence for their own benefits.

Not here to defend my religion or give lectures about Islam, but it breaks my heart that people might think most of us are extreme, but I wanna thank the makers for showing that being extreme has nothing to do with religions.

Also, love the locations and sets, even the editing is fabulous, i felt convinced most of the time. Huge applause for the cast, Hyun Bin sir your dedication to every character never fails to amaze me.