South Korea The Age of Shadows returned 5.5× its production cost, earning $53.2M against a $9.6M budget — one of the highest-return South Korea films in our catalog.
Synopsis
밀정
“Infiltrate and deceive.”
Set in the late 1920s, The Age of Shadows follows the cat-and-mouse game that unfolds between a group of resistance fighters trying to bring in explosives from Shanghai to destroy key Japanese facilities in Seoul, and Japanese agents trying to stop them.
Audience Engagement
292 audience reviews — more than 94% of South Korea films in our index.
Review volume (94th percentile) outruns trending popularity (61th) — a durable title with sustained audience attention.
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 2h 20m runtime, production spent $69K per minute on screen and earned $380K per minute back.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with The Age of Shadows. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Action + Thriller in South Korea
82 South Korea titles in our catalog blend the Action and Thriller genres. Below: the top-rated of them (excluding The Age of Shadows itself).
The 2015–2017 South Korea Window
The Age of Shadows holds position #86 of 254 South Korea films in the 2015–2017 window, below highlighted by audience rating.
The 2010s South Korea Landscape
Catalog density by release year across the 2010s in South Korea, 719 titles in total. Highlighted year (yellow) is when The Age of Shadows premiered alongside 85 others.
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 85 other South Korea films in 2016.
The 801st South Korea title from South Korea we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1955).
Our South Korea catalog contains 1,397 titles in total (931 films).
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on The Age of Shadows, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- korea · 5
- shanghai · 26
- japanese occupation of korea · 25
- 1920s · 18
- independence movement · 7
- korean resistance · 7
- japan · 454
- china · 127
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #435 of 1,397 South Korea films indexed here (69th percentile by TMDB audience score).
Rating is +0.4 points above the South Korea average of 6.9/10.
Among South Korea Action productions specifically: #63 of 266 (top 24%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | South Korea |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Korean |
| Spoken Languages | English, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese |
| Production Companies | Harbin, Warner Bros. Korea, Dark Circle Pictures, Finecut, Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Runtime | 2h 20m |
| Release Date | September 7, 2016 |
| IMDb | tt4914580 |