Al-too-bi: Riteon too beiseu

The movie presents us with another fighter pilot themed story, a theme that hasn't seen any good work on its regard since Top Gun. The plot served here is quite the average of competition among ace pilots mixed with their on-ground relationships. One thing that makes it's more interesting than others with the fact that this movie uses the inherent war potential between the two Koreas as its finale. But the execution can be deemed too pretentious in my opinion. It's because despite the age and technology is supportive, the plot doesn't seem to be real when it comes to all the technical things about the air combat. For instance, when Tae-hun's jet plunged into the sea after he put off the engine to evade the missile, the plane didn't pierce the water like it should. Rather it looked like it dropped from some five meters or so, bouncing it's way on the water surface. These 'uniqueness' supports the story's continuation about the characters surviving the crashes and so on. But it surely looked stupid for those for understand physics even at the least bit. The acting is a typical Korean work, just enough to have the story to roll on.

Weak storyline, like most aviation film much as to my disappoint this could have gotten a good 7 if the writers thought of a better script. There was too many silly lines that I wonder if this was suppose to be a manga filled humour or a live action film. The thing I found interesting though is the tensed relationship with the Americans and Koreans when dealing with missile crisis, couldn't the writers explore on that more than silly aspect of the film. Poor CGI, while it is understandable that there are parts of the film where real fighter jets cannot be used i.e. city dog fight scenes, I believe that they could have done a better job. The characters, I really don't think the Korean Air force would have allowed impulsive, childish and hot headed pilots into their ranks. And what is with them abusing the engineers. Come on its the military discipline, team work and proper conduct is a big thing there.

Verdict: Disappointing, this film could have done better.

The movie was terrible. I expected much more. The planes were all CGI and not believable. I hate the planes. The script was very poor. The acting was good, but the actors and actresses talents' were wasted by poor predictable script with superficial treatment about the soul of flying. I ran my player at 4X to 10X speed to skip the plastic human relationships. Characters don't make sense to me. Pilots were treated like stupid people. Same as mechanics. No dignity for pilots and mechanics. This movie didn't do justice to them. What I want is serious piloting and commanders showing tactical thought, excellent mechanical understanding of aircraft, excellent weapons systems mix between missiles and dogfights, with clear plausible combat scenarios.

Totally exaggerated, from the humor, to the drama and finally the action scenes, but they are like that, oriental cinema in general, but that attracts me, that humor with a yellow smile, a convenient script, gave the women space, deserves applause, awkward romances, clumsy heroes, adorable disgrace ...

This film didn't have the look and feel of a Korean film. It also felt like two completely different films: the first half being a slow-paced comedy; the second half a fast-paced action drama. The film felt like it didn't really know what it wanted to be, and even during the more serious moments, I didn't find the actors serious enough. Most of the time I had no idea what the film was actually about.

The antagonists are not set up properly and only appears at the halfway mark, without any mention of them prior to this. The attack happens suddenly without explanation as to why they are attacking or who they really are. The attack scene was really good, but not enough to save the film. It felt like they blended together 'Top Gun' and 'Behind enemy lines' to ultimately become 'Sky Hunter'. Speaking of which, I'd rather watch 'Sky Hunter' a hundred times over before giving this film a second viewing.