Jeon Woo Chi: O Feiticeiro Taoista

Crowd Pleasing Film Would Make A Fortune Here In The States If Picked Up for Distribution-(and of course promoted)

I'm not kidding--the crowd i saw it with very much into it the entire time. (one dude was all like "that was the greatest movie i ever saw" i wouldn't say it was the greatest i ever saw--but it was a whooshing good time if you'll pardon the lame attempt at a pun.)

Film is about a wizard in the 1500's who's of course a bit of a sarcastic wise guy--he dozen't listen to his elders for shame!!! He gets tasked with battling and capturing these goblin demons that were set free from some ancient scroll--and ends up getting trapped in a picture (cause he can walk into pictures!) for 500 years--and ends up being released into modern day society where he pretty quickly acclimates.

Plot is very similar to Les Visitors (and its American remake Just Visiting) but with more f/x and slam bang but also the film plays it relatively straight (more going with the flow and accepting the situation and less "aren't our modernistic ways frightening and silly to you folks not from around here??? style jokes....although i really really enjoyed Les Visitors--that one was more about the men trying to comprehend what was happening and much less about the mission.)

Film will bring to mind plot elements from all kinds of other movies--at one point the hero's hand turns to stone to try and crush a bad guy--and that's right out Hellboy of course. (come to think of it the plot itself and the loosely defined bad guys are right out of the first hell-boy movie as well.) The army of mutants is pretty much out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (giant mutated rabbit and wolf and guinea pig are some of the goblins woo-chi has to catch) There's even the whole falling in love with the descendant or re-incarnation of loved one from the past time in the new time. (that's a bit as old as Dracula at least.) Woochi even runs smack into a film set and dozen't quite comprehend what the heck is going on (which i know i've seen somewhere else before)

Sometimes it really just dozen't matter if its all been done before though because the film is just so much fun all around. Woochi can bounce around into pictures, into advertisements, into display windows, he also has a sidekick who is essentially a dog in human form. (film gets a lot of laughs out of this) He can become an ink blot drawing at will!

Woochi is a tremendous amount of fun---and I can't believe some studio--even a low budget indie one--dozen't pick this up for a limited run and DVD sale stateside. With just the tiniest bit of commercial promotion--this thing could be a monster hit on par with The Host. (not that that was a monster hit--but you know what i mean--that film got a national release, a good ad campaign, and as such made some coinage because of that....there's no reason why that can get a release and this can't especially since this is a real crowd pleaser...overdone FX effects and all!!) WOOCHI!!!!!!!!

To make a long thought short: I've watched The Sorcerer's Apprentice first, and then the War of the Wizards the same evening. While the Disney flick was plain boring, I really enjoyed the Korean piece. Given, that the CGI is not 100% of the stuff, Hollywood's money can buy, it has all the rest I've missed in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. War of the Wizards has fun story, nice yeah-I'm-a-great-magician-fights (I loved the boss-fight). Summarised: The Sorcerer's Apprentice sticks to it's name: merely an apprentice compared to this lovely crafted Asian movie. Watch it if you like cool magician battles and have an eye and heart for eastern humor.

Woochi (played by Dong-won Gang) is a powerful wizard who has a lighthearted outlook on life. The story revolves around both Wizards and Goblins wanting possession of a magical pipe that will bestow great power upon them. Woochi's sidekick and best friend is Chorangyi, a dog who mostly walks around in human form, and can also shape shift into a horse. They are in search of a Bronze knife, as well, that would turn Chorangyi permanently into a human.

The visuals are STUNNING!! It is incredibly realistic. There's a lot of slapstick comedy here, and although I generally don't enjoy slapstick, the presentation was very good. This is an action fantasy comedy, after all. When Woochi is framed for murder, him and Chorangyi are imprisoned for 500 years. On their return, Woochi's powers are initially weak, and must still battle Goblins, who make their appearance in the city - still in search of the Pipe. The humor does at times get in the way of the action, but this is nevertheless a very entertaining movie.

The action sequences are well done, and the final act is action-packed with impressive visuals. I enjoy this movie every time.

+ A good mix between classic Wu-Xiapian movies and time-travel humor. It never fails to deliver laughs or to impress with witty action. Scrolls, seals, ideograms and magic tricks dispensed by the terrific cast are used to serve both the action and the comic relief. No flashy CGI it's cool and discrete. (The audience burst in laughs when they did the old school 'white smoke' metamorphosis trick.)

• The film lacks a good editing though (a recurrent handicap in Korean movies). Despite the great acting of the cast, it tends to slow down when trying to develop the very secondary female characters. This is probably due to the presence of many Korean movie stars who always insist to get a lot of screen time for their characters even if that doesn't serve the storyline.

I'll give it a 8 because of all the good laughs and this very refreshing and magical atmosphere the movie provides. While Korea's grown famous for pushing to export crappy CGI movies out of sheer patriotism but this isn't one of them. Woochi actually delivers.

This is actually a pretty fun fantasy/adventure movie that is also pretty fast paced. Although it's fast paced, the editing is not very well done and kinda choppy at times. The plot of this revolves around a guy named Jeon Woochi who is a Taoist Wizard, who is also very rebellious and boastful with no humble qualities. Almost the first half of the movie takes place about 500 years ago in Korea but after Jeon Woochi gets locked into a painting by three dumb immortal elders. But gets freed by the elders cause they need Woochi to fight off the goblins and so Woochi ends up in present time in South Korea. While dealing with this, Woochi also has to face off with another villain with wizard like powers who fought Woochi's master in the past. The main villain wants the flute well at least the other half of it which got locked away in the painting along with Woochi. Although for the most part this is a fun ride, the main flaws is how the characters aren't really developed well and the editing just isn't well done like I said before. Oh and the CGI is pretty crappy as well, some done okay though. Also there is hardly any scenes where Woochi actually seemed vulnerable, cause his powers seem infinite as long as he has his talisman papers. It would have been cool if it actually showed the limits to his power. I had a pretty good time watching this and some scenes were really cool. Overall Jeon Woochi delivers.

7.2/10