In northeastern Chinese city of Yanji in Yanbian Prefecture, Gu-nam (Ha Jung-woo), an ethnic Korean, or Joseonjok, toils away as a taxi driver.

The night before his boat is due to return to China, Gu-nam witnesses Seung-hyun being ambushed and killed by his driver and two accomplices inside his apartment building's stairwell.

On the run from the police, Gu-nam abducts and interrogates one of Jung-hak’s smugglers and arranges a return to China via cargo ship.

At the hideout, Tae-won learns that Jung-hak acquired Seung-hyun’s murder contract through a banker named Kim Jung-hwan.

Gu-nam fends off his ambushers and retrieves Jung-hwan’s business card off of them before arriving at the hideout and finding a dying Tae-won, who mumbles that he had Seung-hyun killed for having an affair with his wife.

While on the boat, he has a vision of his wife leaving on a train; he succumbs to his wounds en route back to China, and the fisherman dumps Gu-nam's body and the ashes in the water.

[8] Mark Olsen of The Los Angeles Times wrote "A breakneck mix of bone-crunching freneticism and bloody close-quarters knife-fighting with a strand of romantic melancholy".

[9] The New York Times's Manohla Dargis wrote "A rush of a movie from South Korea that slips and slides from horror to humor on rivers of blood and offers the haunting image of a man, primitive incarnate, beating other men with an enormous, gnawed-over meat bone.

"[10] The Hollywood Reporter's Maggie Lee stated "The raging stamina, unrelenting violence, rapid-fire editing and truncated narrative all give one no pause for thought or even breath.

"[11] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian added "This noirish South Korean gangster film is a deafening explosion of energy, gruesome violence and chaos that, despite its implausibilities, has brashness and style... Perhaps The Yellow Sea does not really hang together, and, yes, it could perhaps have lost 30 minutes.

"[12] Philip Kemp of GamesRadar+ gave the film two stars out of five, stating "At nearly two and a half hours long, The Yellow Sea is overkill in every sense.