Sumbur movie. In general, we were not so interested in the history of Asia in the first half of the 20th century. The thing is that we ourselves then had a civil war, then repression, World War II (in the latter, what was happening in the Asian region was of little interest and occupied the USSR, the main place of action for us was the European part of the Union, although many troops almost the entire war just in case the Soviets kept on the border with China ... just in case). Given all this, this movie looks confused, as the viewer does not really chew the history of relations between Korea, Japan, China. It is assumed that the viewer already knows a lot (well, the local viewer, of course, knows most of his story, but we, if you do not read the encyclopedia, much is not clear, and reluctant to delve into). So we're just going to criticize it.
There are some interesting shooting scenes. It's not a bad show. There are attempts to explain something from the point of view of history (but everything is somehow sluggish and inconclusive, not deep). And there are a lot of fake scenes, frankly unrealistic, which spoils the viewing. At the same time, something serious and deep is often mixed suddenly with some almost comedic scenes, which again spoils the overall impression (if suddenly the authors really originally intended to shoot something serious, and not just entertaining).
There is definitely no objectivity here. There are just good guys (who use not good methods of fighting) and conditional bad guys who, oddly enough, are much more committed to law and order. It's too messy and incomprehensible. Along the way, we are told in a glimpse of the fact that someone there committed a massacre and did such and such things, so they must be eliminated, etc., etc. Cruelty to cruelty, cruelty to cruelty respond, so both die ... conditionally there are no good guys or girls. Everyone has blood on their elbows.
In the end, if you look at it, World War II is something good that happened to Asia... at least some kind of peaceful balance has been established. Sometimes wars, even large, severe long, deadly ones, leave behind peace.
I also don't like the color of the painting. It was made kind of yellowish places (maybe it’s all about authentic lanterns and light bulbs of the time, I don’t know)... like old-fashioned, old newsreel, but it doesn’t look cool. It looks yellow, although Orange might like it... it’s almost like orange.
The entourage of the tape is cool, old things, cars and other transport (very cool specimens are sometimes found, by the way), the situation, even the streets, although it is clear that basically everything here smells like film studio locations. Shooting, shooting, you can look at it.
"Murder" is a South Korean film about the resistance.
The plot is more complicated than wheat noodles. A small group of Korean resistance is attacking the pro-Japanese administration. Chase. Intrigue. Betrayal. Murder. Unexpected turns.
The beginning of the film is disgusting. Bad editing. Bad camera work. Some sudden time jumps. A huge number of characters. Did you hear or miss? Your problems. The thread of history is broken – start from the beginning. The first 15 minutes were unbearable. I'm glad I didn't stop watching.
Having understood the plot, getting used to the story arcs of each character, you accept all the rules of the game and begin to have fun. After all, the plot of the picture never stands still. Heroes are always doing something, failing and starting again. New heroes are emerging. They're doing something, too. Shootouts. Sudden deaths. Santa Barbara. And when it's over, you exhale with relief. It was a fascinating movie.
Initially, it seemed that the film would be like “State Counselor.” I was wrong. Cinema with some stretch can be called unique. “Somewhere I’ve seen it, but I don’t remember where, so it doesn’t count.” Cinema is suitable for almost everyone if you watch carefully.
1933, Korea during the Japanese occupation. Korean independence fighters are planning to assassinate two important figures of the Japanese administration - Governor Gyeongson and a pro-Japanese tycoon. To do this, Em Son-chik assembles a group of three people - a sniper girl, a bomber specialist and a guy on the pickup. The group arrives in Gyeongsung, unaware that among them is a traitor who hired assassins to eliminate them.
South Korean historical action blockbuster. Many long battle scenes shot at a good level. The image of a girl in glasses who shoots enemies with a Thompson machine gun is very memorable.
Worse story. There are a lot of characters, it takes a lot of time to reveal them (so the film is two hours and twenty minutes). However, in principle, everything is clear, although fragmentation is enough. Plus, writers use one of the cheapest melodramatic moves. At the end they tried to go to symbolism. And the scenery, costumes, atmosphere is very good. Soundtrack from the classical compositions of Dvorak, Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, Wagner.
In the end, it turned out more action than a historical film. The authors clearly put more emphasis on this. Not a bad movie, but still for one-time viewing.
I really liked the movie "Murder #39" (2015). It turned out just the same adventure-adventure, detective detective, spy-espionage, action-fighter, drama-drama! Hollywood is resting, sipping a juicy Korean cocktail of ' Steel-Tempered' ' Elusive' and ' Inglourious Bastards' with ' Zita and Gita' Killing ' Japanese Hitler' and his Korean henchmen traitors to the Korean people.
And what is especially impressive is that there is no need to find fault with anything - and the film is beautiful and the actors play cool. Who today can be confused by small roughness, which, frankly, in the picture a little and look at them under the magnifying glass is not at all desirable. So captivating is an unused and very dynamic plot without unnecessary protracted dialogue-repentance. Clever Jung Ji-hyun, who radiated the entire film of South Korean insurgent, unyielding and restrained sexuality, was magnificent in glasses and with a sniper rifle at the top. Even bad boy ' Korean Johnny Depp' - Lee John-jae was matchless, almost eclipsing Ha Jon-yu, who got the lead role, Hawaiian Pistol and cheerful squire O Dal-su on ' elusive' motorcycle...
Well, to make my arguments in favor of the film sound weighty, I add that our Bondarchuks should be forcibly sent to Korea - to learn how to shoot a movie, if they did not bother to learn from Soviet cinema, her ' Young Guard' and ' They fought for their Motherland'...
I don’t regret spending 2 hours and 20 minutes!
10 out of 10
I was impressed with the trailer, so I decided to watch it. But from the very beginning, Korean cinema turned out to be the purest Hollywood, so viewing caused persistent rejection: the acting, dialogue, production, script - everything here tends to be like "big brother." Even pathos in the acting was present as an integral part of the “general line”. As a result, it feels like a bad theater. (I suspect that the film was shot specifically for distribution in the West, then everything was done very well.)
The dialogues abounded with countless Korean names that fell on their heads like peas, and so bounced off immediately without a chance to fix themselves. Therefore, the understanding of the essence of conversations was purely intuitive: who, to whom, what and why.
The production is so inadequate that after each scene it was time to ask the question: why did they do it? Or, why did they do it like that? And since there were no answers to the questions, everything seemed completely absurd and unsuccessful theatrical.
But the entourage under the 30s is not bad, and, perhaps, only this can interest fans of a beautiful picture.
Conclusion. Pure Hollywood format in South Korean performance, plus, retro stylistics under the first third of the 20th century. Beautiful, but not serious. It took 20 to 30 minutes, that's all.
6 out of 10
Asian paintings are gradually gaining space in the world of cinema. The attitude towards them is not unequivocal. Mentality still decides, and much is not understood and accepted. Globalization, of course, all licks, but the schools are different, and it is noticeable.
However, these differences in the schools in Amsal were not revealed. Director Choi Dong-hoon told one of the episodes of the struggle of Korea against Japanese colonial slavery.
It’s hard to see when you don’t even know the whole story. But the story is more than interesting and paradoxical. The paradox is that during the Japanese occupation, Korea experienced rapid economic growth, and life expectancy rose significantly, but something is always wrong. What is not so in this case is that, of course, they received oppression and various uprooting of local traditions. There was violence, too, and that was certainly enough. Japan for this no one beat hands, respectively, there were partisan fighters for independence. There were dozens of them at the time. Perhaps this is one of them.
The plot is quite simple, but not annoying. The film is clearly about a serious topic. It is clear that tragedy will be enough. The director softens all this with point jokes, which are very organically inscribed in the canvas. That's a huge plus in this case. Paphos in acting, as is often observed in Asian cinema, very rarely possibly slipped, but the greasy advantages of the film dissolved it. The costumes and the era are clearly conveyed. The brown maroon color of the film is clearly hinting at the brutality and bloodiness of life then. Especially those who struggle with the yoke.
A historical film can be ruined with just one uneven brushstroke. The painting “Amsal” was created by a clearly experienced master. His hands didn't shake.
8 of 10 The Assassination film by Korean director Choi Dong-hoon touches on the difficult topic of the struggle for the independence of the Korean people during the Japanese occupation. It is difficult because the activities of the provisional government of Korea in the 1930s (and the film is set in 1933 and the main characters act on behalf of the interim government), is the subject of controversy and debate. Were the assassinations of representatives of the Japanese elite organized by the main headquarters a sincere manifestation of the struggle for freedom or simply an attempt to gain popularity? Should we evaluate these events or try to show them with the accuracy and authenticity of documentary films?
Despite the historical background and active exploitation of historical events, the film tells a fictional story. The assassination of a Japanese general in 1933. In reality, the interim government orchestrated two assassination attempts in 1932: a failed assassination attempt on the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo and an attempted bombing at the Japanese military leaders’ celebration of the Emperor’s birthday in Shanghai. With the events told in the film, these assassination attempts have nothing in common.
Choi Dong-hoon decided to take a special path. Along the way, Tarantino, who once filmed a fantasy about "" What Would Happen If Hitler Was Killed In ... "" Korean "Murder" skillfully balances the brutality of the war drama with the insanity of "Inglourious Basterds." Here, mentions of the massacre in Manchuria, accompanied by shots of dozens of bloodied bodies, coexist with dashing chases along the slopes, stories about unscrupulous mercenaries, gilded prostheses and other attributes of either a spaghetti western, or a film for a grand house cinema.
It is an adventure film with memorable characters, vivid scenes and dramatic moments. It is both entertaining and touching the history of the Korean people. I would recommend watching.
In 1933, the fighters for the independence of Korea plan the assassination of important figures of the Japanese administration – the Governor of Seoul Mamoru Kawaguchi and Kang In-Guk, a Japanese business magnate. Agent Eom Sok-Jin assigns the mission to the girl-sniper An Ok-Yun, the specialist bomber Hwang Dok-Sam and Chu Sang-Ok. This is what the short description of the film says. However, the penchant of Koreans in mixing genres at the output we get a rather strong picture, which, despite the rather impressive timekeeping, screen time flies by when viewing imperceptibly. Here we should pay tribute to the director Choi Dong-hoon, who did not emphasize either the kilometer pathetic dialogues, or the static picture (from which the jaw periodically reduces). It is very pleasant and interesting to observe what is happening, the script is not replete with cliches, scenes of fights, shootings are filmed perfectly.
Of course, it wasn't without the blots either. Here I agree with the previous reviewer, who noted a certain similarity of the individual scenes of the film with the Indian militants. But again, this is just a snare.
The cast is on top. If you are a director and have such “dents” of the actor’s “workshop” such as: Jung Ji-hyun, Ha Jung Woo, Lee Jung Jae, O Dal Soo, Cho Ji-un, then you simply have no right to fail. Fortunately, the actors were 100 percent convincing.
Koreans clearly learned to shoot dynamic action movies, with good special effects, they know how to keep in suspense. Here, too, in general, everything is dynamic, but sometimes (from my personal point of view) a little tightened, reducing the degree of heat. But by the end of the film, the dynamics were rolled again.
The director also added a couple of standard tricks to the film. Jeong Ji-hyun plays well, but in the end the director could not resist and inserted the image of the “rock agent 007” when she bares her leg in the bride’s dress and pulls a gun out of the stocking, and then begins shooting... In general, there are some banal techniques, but without too much ...
The film’s message is obvious – about good fighters for Korean independence who do not regret themselves. There are Japanese assistants, but in the end they get what they deserve. If the court does not reach them, then “just popular retribution” is obtained.
Among the minor shortcomings: about a certain tightness in the middle, I said. There are a number of episodes with shootings in the style of Indian militants (well, almost so), when one spreads a couple of dozen, kills the people in packs, and they can not catch him. There was an episode when a 6-7 bullet was inserted into a person, and as a result, with a knife in his hand, he crawls up to a scoundrel (who is waiting for a punishing sword to come to him) and puts a knife into the chest by the henchman of the Japanese occupiers (although the scoundrel did not prevent survival later). Sometimes there’s a lot of talk before the shooting. Enough Korean Stirlitz, who easily impersonate the Japanese for Japanese officers and so on. But in general, these are small faults rather.
In general, the film looks normal, a good historical action movie on the Korean theme. Play actors that I personally like – the same Lee Jung Jae, Jung Jin Hyun, Ha Jung Wu. Normally play.
But I don’t understand why the movie got so many people and why it was so successful. It is possible that the Koreans are impressed by the plot itself (the fight against the Japanese occupiers). Although Koreans use this topic regularly... But here it is.
Verdict: I watched it once and didn’t regret it. A second look? Maybe, but very soon. The special "serious problems of being" are not raised in the film. It quickly becomes clear who is good and who is bad. A normal action movie, you can watch once, and then decide for yourself. Thank you!