Lee Myung-se

Lee may be overtly mining the territory of Woo and Tarantino, but in the end his sensibility is closer to that of Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai (whose radiantly expressionistic 1994 "Chungking Express" itself channels Jean-Luc Godard). Lee has a mischievous elfin streak, a penchant for trying naughty little tricks that shouldn't work but somehow do: During that stakeout sequence mentioned earlier, when Woo and Kim wax wistful about hot soup, Lee plunks a blurry-edged surrealist vision of it in the corner of the frame, steam shimmering from its glistening surface like a wraith in a Cocteau film.