Cheon gun

I am amazingly surprised that no one seems to have noticed that this movie is actually a remake of a japanese movie made in 1979. Such topics about slodiers thrown deep Inside a time tunnel is not so usual after all. You may appreciate both features.

When I first read the story, I thought it would be fun to see an ordinary thief change into a legendary general! But what I have seen is more than just a comedy! It is truly an epic on small scale! And a comment on the political situation of North and South Korea! The excellent combination of humor,drama,a little bit of science fiction and a lot of action makes this a movie not to miss! The cast is great and the story is wonderful! It never get's boring! Before you know it the movie is over! The beautiful cinematography and some nice cgi effects make the viewing experience even more intense and pleasurable! I know that some viewers will be put off by the time travel aspect in the story! It is only used as a tool! The focus is on the characters and their actions! The spectacular finale is truly a heroic bloodshed! I enjoyed "Heaven's Soldiers" immensely and I think that it certainly deserves a higher rating than it got! Trust me this is an amazing movie!

Did producers of the new South Korean film "Heaven's Soldiers" foresee that the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program would resume in late July? The plot of "Heaven's Soldiers" revolves around a group of South and North Korean soldiers who make an unexpected trip through time to the past, while their countries are in feud with the United States over their joint development of a nuclear warhead.

From director Min Jun Gi comes the 2005 film Heaven's Soldiers, a nationalistic, military-themed time travel adventure filled with equal parts action and comedy! The story centers on a group of North and South Korean soldiers who find themselves flung back in time just as their respective countries are locked in a tense standoff with the United States over the status of a jointly produced nuclear warhead. The film kicks off with stock footage of the historic meeting between the two Korean leaders in June 2000, using this real life moment as a springboard for the film's fictional premise that North and South Korea secretly formed an alliance, agreeing to co-produce their very own weapon of mass destruction! But when the two Koreas decide to hand over the warhead to the United States, North Korean military officer Kang Min Gil (Kim Seung Woo) decides to take matters into his own hands and not only steal the weapon with the help of a band of private soldiers but kidnap the female South Korean scientist (Kong Hyo Jin) who helped create it as well! Things get even more difficult for Kang as South Korean Navy Officer Park Jeong Woo (Hwang Jung Min) is sent by his superiors to capture the rogue soldier and reclaim the weapon. In the midst of a battle on the DMZ, the soldiers are suddenly transported through time thanks to the appearance of a mysterious comet.

In a blink of the eye, the soldiers find themselves trapped in the 16th century, a dark time in Korean history, which saw its countrymen spending most of their time battling off the advances of foreign invaders. After defeating a band of looters with their high-powered machine guns, the time displaced soldiers are hailed as conquering heroes by the locals. Dubbed "Heaven's Soldiers," the group ends up meeting Yi Sun Shin (Park Joong Hoon), the real life admiral who led Korea to victory against the Japanese.

However, the legendary Yi isn't quite what the soldiers expected. Rather than the mythical hero of legend he's thought to be in the present day, the Yi the soldiers encounter is actually a thief and a rascal, one who can't even pass the officer's exam! Shocked that their hero could be so lax in his studies, the soldiers give Yi a crash course in military education, all in the hopes he'll fulfill his destiny! But will Yi discover his true calling in time or will he doom both himself and his beloved country? Find out in Heaven's Soldiers, a crowd-pleasing time travel epic!

It looks like the movie didn't cause much money, but it did cause the director a lot of thinking to put his thoughts into this comedy. The movie express a nationalism idea in the director's own opinion: unite with the north and go against the foreigners. The comic parts are mostly from the portrayal of south and north (the north officer always stand on the left,north Korean soldiers' arrogance...) I love the ending very much, when Admiral Lee's 13 ships had to face the 300 ships from Japan (a real battle in history which Koreans won), he motivated his sailors: as we are united, there's nothing can stop us. Which is the idea the director wants to tell his country men. Korea is a smaller country compare to any potential opponent, it has to be united.

The political message of this film is clear - and I like it, but not so much the film itself. I think that the story is weak, the actors are not convincing (when you see how the South Korean actors are usually portraying North Koreans, you wonder did they do any research at all, never mind meeting the actual people! I am not Korean and I think I have more knowledge of what people in North Korea are like than the makers of this film! )and the ending is very predictable. It was a nice idea to make it, but as a film... I have seen political South Korean films that made me cry and laugh. This one just doesn't have the same effect.