Hanbando

Wow. I can't believe some of these reviews. Of course if you watch a dubbed version of a Korean movie, the acting's going to look and sound cheesy as hell.

The movie features a lot of very interesting sides of history that has never been revealed before.

Yes as someone has mentioned before, Queen Min was brutally raped before death. Japan in entirety did the same to Korea for about 35 years. How can you say that Japan was not the villain? They took Korean women, destroyed businesses, families and forced the Koreans to work under their boots.

This movie I did see some typos, but those are minors. These are some of the top Korean actors and apparently for those who think this was horrible acting, you will never understand. It's like reading poems by Pushkin in English. If you don't know Russian, Pushkin's poetry will sound very bad to you. But only those who know and truly understand Russian can comprehend and understand its beauty. I can say the same thing here. If you understand Korean and Korean history throughly, then you will truly know what a masterpiece this movie is.

And to all those who think that this movie is a nationalistic-hungry movie, whose director is out there to just "praise" about Korea, you are wrong. Korea was exploited by the Japanese and at the moment in the world, they are trying to hide most of it.

Shinzo Abe, the current Japanese Minister Official refuses to acknowledge for comfort women and apologize for what has happened in Korea... This is unacceptable.

To the die-hard haters of this movie. This is political fiction, of course. Don't get so worked up over this movie, using the word nationalist and extremist. It is fairly accurate portrayal of Korean history and politics. Conservative party is often called 'grassroot traitor' and criticized for supporting the interest of Japan over Korea. I could not understand their theory and political action in the past, but I realized that they just feel inferiority, self-pity, self-defeat with antiquated idea accumulated and assimilated over the course of history during Japanese Colonialism after watching this movie. As a Korean, I'm just glad to see that young Koreans overcome this self-defeat and rather lead the world trend now.

The movie itself is not a masterpiece and is specifically intended for the audience in Korea. The story can be nationalistic, but it does not have leap of logic, either. I like the fact that the current political situation overlaps with the history and sad fate of Jo-seon Dynasty. The phrase 'the history reflects the future' is actualized in this movie. Each character is strong and unique, and all actors perfectly bring their roles to the screen. You cannot take points off from the acting.

Overall, average movie but it does not deserve this kind of criticism.

Hanbando is a Korean nationalist fantasy involving a search for the missing national Seal Of Korea, a Japanese conspiracy to renew its colonial control of Korea, and patriots and traitors battling over the destiny of the Korean nation. If this sounds nail-biting, believe me it ain't. At 147 minutes (2hrs. 27 min), it is overlong by at least 50%. There is a seemingly endless series of discussions over the plight of Korea which are agonizingly tedious to sit through. Several scenes which go back and forth from the present to Korea of the 19th Century are, of course, intended to show the still unresolved situation in Korea, with Japan as the still-threatening arch enemy. An underlying theme throughout the film is the supposed effort of the world's major powers, including the U.S., Japan, China and Russia to hold Korea back and to thwart Korean unification. For all this political content, this is an extremely boring film.

Many of the Korean movies I've seen lately seem to take this same nationalistic stand where Japan is pictured as extremely evil, always pressuring, conquering and violating Korea. I don't know what the exact situation in South Korea is at the moment, but judging from these movies, nationalism seems to be pretty much in demand.

As for the movie, mediocre would be my word of choice. Not bad, but nothing really worth watching for. The events have rather dragging pace, most of the actors are plausible, music suits the movie well and action looks good. The plot is weakest point of the movie, being unconvincing at best, it focuses on Korea digging up their Emperial history and rising to resist Japan after all the cruelty they have suffered from their behalf. Certainly not best that Korean movie industry has to offer.