Kingudamu

I love historical movies, including the films about the history, either real or fictional, of the Asian countries. And so I had high expectations of spending a nice evening by watching another Asian historical movie. Alas, my expectations were ruined by the totally annoying acting, or should I say - over-acting, of the main character. His grotesque bulging eyes, yells and totally stupid demeanor, either caused by the script or his own 'contribution' to it made it so irritating that me and my wife could not watch it for more than first 20 minutes.

Now I do have a soft spot for Shaw Brothers movies. And while this isn't one, the nostalgia might creep up while watching this. It's quite a throwback to the glory days of Eastern movies. That also means, this has some major flaws, as did the "originals". Characters are a bit thinly drawn, but there is so much action happening you might not mind anyway.

Stunts, action and camera work are really good. The predictibility of the story does not matter that much or rather shouldn't matter that much. You know what this is, treat and watch it as such

This movie has all the elements of what you would expect from a movie like this. Action, story, history, interesting characters etc. Its all there.... except the main character's actor goes out of his way to just spoil everything with his over the top acting. I'm not sure how the director didn't just tell him to turn it down a notch or two but at points you just find it hard to take him seriously and are stunned that this is the protagonist and the one you're supposed to be backing and taking seriously. I remember watching the same actor in another show he did called Alice in Borderland and he carries the same over the top acting from there. The difference is over there he is surrounded by children so it its ok, while here in a historical piece, he doesn't match the role at all. I'm certain this movie rating would have been 7.5-8 overall if it was cast by a different lead.

Despite what the trailer shows, there are zero epic battles. There are hardly any "screenshot-worthy" scenes either--less than ten. It's also extremely over-dramatic and half an hour too long at least.

But it's fun.

I have tried half a dozen times to get into the anime, but I cannot force myself to enjoy something with that "quality" of animation, and beyond that even the loud-mouthed, obnoxious, and totally-unrelatable protagonist spoil enjoyment. I can't commit my time to seeing a grouchy child not be smacked to pieces by the adults in the room.

This movie, sadly, has the same unworthy protagonist, but at least I can say that the producers translated that perfectly and the main actor followed instructions to the t. It is, however, entertaining. No modernization at all, no attempt to shoehorn contemporary mores into a story older than Jesus, no deeper meaning other than being fun.

That's what a movie should be. Kingdom is fun to watch. While the details are obviously skipped over because of its format, the rags-to-general story clearly takes its shape. The side characters, despite no backstory, are all acted flawlessly so their motivations are natural and slot with expectations rather well. Good directing makes the "feel" seem more Western than Eastern, but that's good in my book as the Western style is more palatable.

I can recommend this is you want to be entertained and can look past its flaws. It is not arthouse, it's not a HanCinema kind of deal, but it doesn't need to be. Definitely going to binge the second movie right now.

I was hoping this would be an action packed war movie, and it was in some ways. But the constant emotional cry/screaming drove me absolutely insane by the end of the movie, so much so I didn't even finish the last 15 mins of the movie. It was unbelievably predictable, the lead character was uninteresting who was constantly screaming and yelling for long periods of time. There was more drama in this movie than anything else. If you took out all the screaming, crying, flashbacks, and talking in between fighting (super unrealistic) you could condense this movie into a short 30 min movie and you would still get all the important parts of this movie. I went into this movie expecting to enjoy it, and ended it early because it was that boring and annoying. It could have been such a better movie than it turned out to be because the plot of the movie was good. I would advise skipping this movie unless your into drama war movies where there's almost non stop crying and screaming and very little action.