The Age of Shadows

The Age of Shadows (lit. "Emissary") is a 2016 South Korean period action thriller film directed by Kim Jee-woon and written by Lee Ji-min and Park Jong-dae. The film is set in Shanghai and Seoul in the 1920s and stars Song Kang-ho and Gong Yoo. It was selected as the South Korean entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.

The film won the Best Picture award in the Action Features category at the 2016 Fantastic Fest held in Austin, Texas.

Plot
Korean police captain Lee Jung-chool (Song Kang-ho) has been charged by the Japanese colonial government with rooting out members of the country's resistance movement. But while Lee has a history of selling out his own people to secure a favorable position with the Japanese, he’s been hit harder than usual by the death of Kim Jang-ok (Park Hee-soon), a resistance fighter who used to be his classmate. The leader of the resistance, Che-san (Lee Byung-hun), senses that this turncoat, if approached and handled properly, might be turned once more — this time in their favor. And so begins an incremental, coded psychological dance between Lee and a key resistance figure named Kim Woo-jin (Gong Yoo), whose antique shop is a front for a scheme to smuggle explosives from Shanghai into Seoul.

Main

 * Song Kang-ho as Lee Jung-chool
 * Gong Yoo as Kim Woo-jin

Supporting

 * Han Ji-min as Yeon Gye-soon
 * Shingo Tsurumi as Higashi
 * Uhm Tae-goo as Hashimoto
 * Shin Sung-rok as Jo Hwe-ryung
 * Heo Sung-tae as Ha Il-soo
 * Lee Seol-goo as Oh Nam-won
 * Kim Dong-young as Ha Chul-joo
 * Jung Yoo-ahn as Hwang Ui-seo
 * Go Jun as Shim Sang-do
 * Seo Young-joo as Joo Dong-sung
 * Kwon Soo-hyun as Sun-gil
 * Lee Hwan as Park Dae-yi
 * Kwak Ja-hyung as Seo Jin-dol
 * Oh Ha-nee as Hwang Seo-im
 * Yoo Sang-jae as Hunter Park
 * Jo Young-gyu as Kim Hak-jin
 * Choi Yu-hwa as Kim Sa-hee
 * Han Soo-yeon as Mae-hyang
 * Nam Moon-chul as Kim Hwang-sub
 * Kim Soo-woong as Saito
 * Choi Jang-won as Noh Duk-soo
 * Heo Hyung-gyu as Jung Woo-sik
 * Baek In-kwon as Park Woong
 * Jung Do-won as Woo Ma-e
 * Lee Soo-kwang as Hideo
 * Hiromitsu Takeda as Takeda
 * Shin Sung-il as Park Ga
 * Kim Ui-gun as Heo Jung-goo
 * Foster Burden as Ludvik
 * Izo Oikawa as Umano
 * Kazuhiko Ikebe as Nakada

Special appearance

 * Lee Byung-hun as Jung Chae-san
 * Park Hee-soon as Kim Jang-ok

Production
On August 3, 2015, it was announced that Warner Bros. would finance and distribute its first ever Korean-language 1930s set drama Secret Agent, and the $8.62 million budgeted film would also be produced by Grimm Pictures. The project and script was developed by Lee Ji-min and Park Jong-dae, which Kim Jee-woon would direct and the cast would be Song Kang-ho and Gong Yoo. A trailer was released on July 14, 2016, revealing the new title as The Age of Shadows.

Critical reception
The film has received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds an approval rating of 100%, based on 41 reviews with an average rating of 7.3/10. On Metacritic, it holds a weighted average score of 78/100, based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

The Film Stage gave the film a positive review, writes "In short, mainstream audiences should get a kick out of this polished, often exciting patriotist drama. But those looking for a deeper, mightier resonance would be well advised to keep their expectations in check."

The Hollywood Reporter describes the film as "a patriotic costumer" and says, "Several impressive action scenes sustain the tension and electrify this overlong, often hard-to-follow story".

Variety wrote, "Cult director Kim Jee-woon delivers the goods with an ultra-stylish cloak-and-dagger actioner".

Screendaily noted that, "Local audiences should respond well to the stirring patriotic sentiment on display here".

Box office
The film topped the South Korean box office for three consecutive weeks.