Hyeongsa

I saw this film at the opening night of the Hawaii International Film Festival, as an unannounced special screening. Outrageously colorful and stylized, it's a tale of a girl trained as a sword-fighter who works as a cop, and a mysterious masked swordsman who may or may not be in league with a gang who is flooding the country with counterfeit money. The plot is confusing enough, but it really doesn't matter: it's just an excuse for some amazing set- pieces involving crowds of sword-fighters, fighters chasing through markets and dye factories, barroom brawls, and over the top humor. And swordplay as foreplay. Not likely to get a US release, but a lot of fun. Modern Korean cinema, in my opinion, is leading the world in terms of set and scenic design, and innovative cinematography. Catch this film to see what I mean.

I cannot feel the love betwen them, but i love the action scenes

I just saw this at the Toronto Film Festival. I really looked forward to it, after watching the trailer. The cinematography was no doubt a visual feast, beautiful composition and choreography, a lot of the time it resembles a comic book, the mysterious "sad eyes" and the exaggerated Namsoon, but the entire film just feels like a big loop of artistic sequence, a bit of story, artistic sequence, etc etc. After a while, it seems that a lot of it are just there for eye candy, didn't really do much in terms of contributing to the story, eventually it just became tiresome and repetitive. I can't say it was bad at all, but just the cinematography wasn't engaging enough, it was a sharp contrast of gorgeous visuals and an insipid story.

I don't know how many of the reviewers of this movie realize just how difficult some of the visual effects the director managed to pull off really are. I'm currently an art student and I've helped in the filming of more than a few movies in my life and I've seen more movies than most people have even heard of and yet this movie has stood near the top of the list of my favorite films since I saw it. Now maybe I'm biased because this movie has more emotion depicted in one scene of swordplay than movies like the Notebook. If you missed it the first time through you were obviously reading a book by its cover because its story is told through expressions and movements of the characters not through the traditional blunt, in your face talking which can sometimes neglect the need for visuals in a movie. Half the movies that have come out in the past five years wouldn't be worth a damn except for their dialog. They would be better as books on tape. This movie is all about the visuals and how they blend with an amazing score. Very few directors can pull off emotions through pure visual splendor and music. How this has a barely above a five rating is disgusting. I recommend this movie to anyone. They say the plot is thin but if your just basing that off the dialog you've missed three quarters of the story. Watch the actors body language and how the music builds upon it.

I'm giving it 10 partially because its score is so low. The film, from what I know, was received as poorly in Korea also. I suppose it's not for everyone, although I think it's possible if one watches it one more time. When I first watched it, I hated it. It was boring, weird, and never seemed to end. but then, I felt cheated for paying for it (I watched it online.. small screen, still paid for it..) so I watched it again cuz I could re-watch it within 6 hours or something like that. And now I have the DVD.

This movie is very unkind to people who are used to traditional story-telling format in movies. We (at least I) usually want to hear things out loud. Have things explained to us. I didn't know before, but I guess we must depend a lot on the dialogues.

At first I hated some parts with its echo effects and how everybody would sing-song a line or divide them into neat parts as they would NEVER do in real life. It was hard for me to understand (and I'm more of a Korean speaker. Later I watched the DVD with the Korean subtitle on;;;) and very annoying. You don't get much of the storyline by listening to what they say. A lot of things happen that can only be seen and much emotion is conveyed through the actions/movements of the visual items on the screen (including the actors and actresses, of course) instead of being delivered straight forward in narrative 'words' to our ears.

On my first viewing I thought the film doesn't show enough convincing evidences or hows or whys of the main characters falling in love. It seemed unreal and to happen so fast that I felt they were getting away by themselves, leaving the audience behind.

But on the second viewing, it touched me much more than at the first time. I could feel how the characters felt and acted, how their feelings changed throughout the passage of the movie. Those things no longer unconvincing to me. This time, I was with them. I felt what they felt. (as opposed to just knowing what I'm "supposed to" feel) And after my second viewing, I could say this is a very emotional film. (not boring.) A lot of people accused the director of being conceited and just showing off how pretty he can make the screen look, but not trying to communicate with the audience.

But there was also a sector(?) of mania fans who viewed the film over and over again, raved about it, protested for a second viewing in the theaters. (cuz the movie was out of the theaters quickly for not making much money.) I think the reason is 1) the way of story telling was something that most people were familiar with. They were expecting something else. And 2) Maybe it just is a film that needs a bit more concentration or work from the audience. (more active participation?) Maybe one does need a second viewing to enjoy/appreciate it more. (but I've heard of people who loved it instantly on the first viewing. Maybe I just didn't concentrate or look for the right things?) Well. I own the DVD now. and I don't buy lots of dvds. Actually it was the first DVD I ever purchased. (although I still haven't finished viewing all the supplemental features;;) and the second one was this k-drama series. and now I want to buy the movie Bittersweet on DVD. (or is it Bittersweet Life? Don't know the exact English title.) I just wanna say that for those who really hated it and thought it was boring the first time they watched it, give it another chance if you ever get around to it. The chances are, you are not gonna regret it and will grow to love it like I did. (I think it improves upon repeated viewings. You see things you didn't see before every time you watch it again. the movie has lots of symbolism that's fun to try to figure out.) Hm. that was kind of a long review. but really, it's quite a lovely film, I think. ^^