Yesterday

Listen up, soldiers, it's time to strap on your AKA47, buckle up your Uzi and get ready to run with the Korean SWANP team - that's special weapons/no plotline to you.

The time is some not-very-far-in-the-future period, where, seemingly it's OK to drop characterisation in favour of atmospherics.

The plot - what there is of it - involves a renegade man, Goliath (Choi Min-su), who is causing mayhem on the North/South border of the newly reunified Korea, because of his penchant for killing scientists.

Detective Suk (Kim Seung-woo), who has a typically troubled past, is dispatched with his SWAT team and a scientist to do the decent thing and kill him.

There are hints of a plot line, but everything is racing along at such a pace - only lit by the flash of muzzles - that it is difficult to spot it.

Director Jeung Yun-su seems to have been caught between the desire to "do an Arnie", plump for a straightforward shoot-'em-up and the urge to make something more artistic. In the end, this marriage isn't a sound one and while there is some success in the artistic endeavours, they feel cumbersome and out of place in what is essential a video game premise.

Yesterday is going to be shown as one of the late night romps of the Edinburgh Film Festival. Maybe, it will be better after five pints!