Hansan: Dragão Ascendente

A prequel to ROARING CURRENTS, revealing another naval battle that Admiral Yi engaged in roughly five years before the events of that film. From the outset, HANSAN: RISING DRAGON sails over familiar territory; we get an hour or so of setup and character intrigue before the filmmakers let rip with an extensive battle sequence that occupies the second half of the running time. I found the cast undistinguished this time around - there's no Choi Min-sik to bring gravitas to the proceedings - and the CGI effects are only adequate. However, the concentration on military tactics and spectacle makes this a fun, breezy watch.

This is undoubtedly one of the most interesting movies from south Korea. Unfortunately the narrative is a little bit biased. My objections might be far fetched but as a history enthusiast I knew that admiral Yi Soon-Shin was obviously asking the Chinese emperor to aid them but in the battles they showed Koreans fought alone, anything about Ming China didn't really have significant appearances here. It's also noticeable that the samurai army's Japanese obviously spoken in THICK KOREAN accent (why the director didn't hire any Japanese actors? That's bizarre!). I can't understand if they insisted to hire only Koreans, why didn't they hire some dialect/accent coaches to dub spoken Japanese like native speakers? Honestly I'm a bit annoyed by this. My brain interpreted it roughly as the battles between 2 Korean forces, one force is deserters versus the other force is patriots of homeland. I appreciated this movie a lot but my criticism is obvious, this movie is self-centered about Korean narrative of their historical battles. As someone who diagnosed with ADHD and I paid almost $ 7 to watch this movie in the cinema, I can only lament the historical distortion of this movie. Typical anti-Japanese propaganda...sigh (I'm sorry you failed to amaze me! Hansan : rising dragon is not better than Admiral: roaring currents). I rated this movie, 7.2 out of 10.

Rising Dragon is a sequel done perfect. A well made movie with hardly any flaws in the re-enactment process. Great work by the whole cast not missing a single beat. Excellent character insight and story build up no plot holes at all every bit of the story ia relevant to the final victory at battle. It's one of the very few movies of the genre that really is exciting without straight up war and bloody. Rising Dragon has a quietening effect to it which results it's action sequences to be fully effective. Mind-blowing special effects, simply fun to watch. Sound effects supplements well too. Worth the watch without a doubt.

I truly enjoyed the whole movie. The intricate costume design and meticulously crafted set in this movie are cool, man. The Japanese armor design is dope af, and they've truly captured it exceptionally well. I love that they showcase the nuanced aftermatch of his campaign in this movie. The cinematography is top-notch, with numerous beautiful scenes that vividly capture the grand scale of war. Usually, other series or movies don't depict it with such precision.

However, it's kinda hard to follow the plot, even with my knowledge of the Imjin War. And yeah, I agree that the first movie was much better in terms of direction, but this movie excels in action, in my opinion. As a devoted fan of Admiral Yi Sun Shin, I thoroughly enjoy this movie despite its flaws.

Finally, man, can they just hire a Japanese actor for a Japanese character? After watching so much anime, I can distinctly hear the not-so-Japanese-speaking character. You can almost sense the un-Japaneseness. And I'm not even Japanese. Imagine for people who speak Japanese; it must be hell to listen to. I'm not against the actor, but at least if you don't want to hire a Japanese actor, consider a Korean actor with fluent Japanese.

I am not from Korea and I know and study a little about the story of Yin Sun Shing, even the film that came out in 2014 I haven't watched it, honestly when I watched the film Hansan Rising Dragon, I didn't really understand the storyline, all I could understand was that they had a turtle boat and only the Japanese dialogues I could understand where it was going, for the Koreans I had a little difficulty understanding their conversations, I am also not Japanese.

The rest I will start watching Korean films to understand how they make their storylines, many Korean films are interesting to my friends but for me it is very difficult to understand how it looks interesting, moreover the shooting of Korean films is always bad, where the camera is close to the character so that the aesthetic impression is lacking I really hope that in the future Korean films will be better than before.