Masquerade

In this stylized and operatic costume drama making its U.S. debut, Lee Byung-hun stars as the temperamental and autocratic king and as an actor conscripted into replacing the ruler when he is seized by nightmares of assassination attempts and coups d'etat. Masquerade is set in the seventeenth century; though both men inhabit different poles of personality, the one thing they have in common is fear, and Lee deftly communicates the anxieties that grip the pair in ways that make each character distinctive and realistic.