Der Admiral 2: Die Schlacht der Drachen

This is undoubtedly one of the most interesting movies from south Korea. Unfortunately the narrative is a little bit biased. My objections might be far fetched but as a history enthusiast I knew that admiral Yi Soon-Shin was obviously asking the Chinese emperor to aid them but in the battles they showed Koreans fought alone, anything about Ming China didn't really have significant appearances here. It's also noticeable that the samurai army's Japanese obviously spoken in THICK KOREAN accent (why the director didn't hire any Japanese actors? That's bizarre!). I can't understand if they insisted to hire only Koreans, why didn't they hire some dialect/accent coaches to dub spoken Japanese like native speakers? Honestly I'm a bit annoyed by this. My brain interpreted it roughly as the battles between 2 Korean forces, one force is deserters versus the other force is patriots of homeland. I appreciated this movie a lot but my criticism is obvious, this movie is self-centered about Korean narrative of their historical battles. As someone who diagnosed with ADHD and I paid almost $ 7 to watch this movie in the cinema, I can only lament the historical distortion of this movie. Typical anti-Japanese propaganda...sigh (I'm sorry you failed to amaze me! Hansan : rising dragon is not better than Admiral: roaring currents). I rated this movie, 7.2 out of 10.

My wife turned me to South Korea movies, but while she loves doramas, I am very much into war epics, as I like good war films. I watched all the Korean Civil War mvoies, but this time it is a history piece and a great one!

Epic war movie about 16th century battle in the open sea between Choson Empire and Japanese Empire. It could easily be just another war effort with little sense, but what makes this film a real good try is a very deep and decent portrayal of several main heroes with their inner and outer weaknesses, fears and struggles.

There are no super heroes here, no one flies in the air or breaks walls, nay. Here, real people fight and die either valliantly or cowardly.

Both Japanese and Koreans are depicted like real flesh and blood, sweating and bleeding, afraid or brave.

Final Hansan naval battle is a sheer eye candy but the horrors of war are here, too. People die, ships sink, mistakes are made by both sides during the battle.

The CGI are excellent here, but they are not the main It, the It-thing gere is the human struggle, the huge battle between two great admirals and their wills. This is played so weel and so decently that little doubt remains.

I recommend this tremendous epic film to all history buffs.

I am not from Korea and I know and study a little about the story of Yin Sun Shing, even the film that came out in 2014 I haven't watched it, honestly when I watched the film Hansan Rising Dragon, I didn't really understand the storyline, all I could understand was that they had a turtle boat and only the Japanese dialogues I could understand where it was going, for the Koreans I had a little difficulty understanding their conversations, I am also not Japanese.

The rest I will start watching Korean films to understand how they make their storylines, many Korean films are interesting to my friends but for me it is very difficult to understand how it looks interesting, moreover the shooting of Korean films is always bad, where the camera is close to the character so that the aesthetic impression is lacking I really hope that in the future Korean films will be better than before.

Rising Dragon is a sequel done perfect. A well made movie with hardly any flaws in the re-enactment process. Great work by the whole cast not missing a single beat. Excellent character insight and story build up no plot holes at all every bit of the story ia relevant to the final victory at battle. It's one of the very few movies of the genre that really is exciting without straight up war and bloody. Rising Dragon has a quietening effect to it which results it's action sequences to be fully effective. Mind-blowing special effects, simply fun to watch. Sound effects supplements well too. Worth the watch without a doubt.

Unabashedly Korean blockbuster had arguable historical accuracy but Kim Han-min surely treated audience with impressive production values and 'geokbukseon' final battle. That's how weak interrelated subplots and underutilized characters are forgiven.