Carter

Carter was a style over substance dizzying 132 minutes of utter ridiculousness, ruined by horrible camerawork and a convoluted story. Huge props to lead actor Joo Won, all the skilled stuntmen, insanely choreographed action scenes and the great action set pieces and visuals, but sadly, all that effort was wasted on unwatchable dizzying, seizure-inducing, single-take-looking headache-inducing camera work - and just as bad editing. Had all the great action and fight scenes been shot normally - with tact, intelligence, and aim, this film's action could've topped the Mission Impossible films. But instead, it was like a drunk on meth, with one fancy camera drone trying to keep up with the action. Then add a decent conceptual story, that ended up being incoherent and tried too hard to be smart with convoluted twists, and drag it out with unnecessarily repetitive long action scenes - for over 2 hours. It was frustrating, exhausting, and a huge missed opportunity to be a great action film. If you want to see it done properly - with great action and a great story, watch The Roundup with Don Lee. Writer and director Byung-gil Jung needs to stick to basic camera work and lessen the overbearing dramatics, as well as work towards better story-telling - in under 2 hours.

The entire film is shot and made in a way that makes it look like a one-shot long take. But you can notice that there were lots of cuts because there are like 85% of the actions that were pretty insane, so that would be extremely impossible to shoot one long take lol.

It was Hardcore Henry type movie that had more actions, only the editing was kinda poorly done. Lots of cheap green screens and CGI, but doesn't bother me anyway. The actions sequences were actually pretty insane and impressive, IMO. The camerawork is kinda cool, but some people might find it annoying.

Would have been one of the best action films if it was shot in 4-6 long takes without green screens, for sure. Overall, I liked it, it's quite unique. Except Hardcore Henry, I've never seen any movies like this one.

Editor: How many cuts & transitions do you want?

Director: Yes

Man! My head hurts and my eyes need some rest. Even though I do love these fast-paced action features, this turned out to be too much! I know and I understand that there would be some who have an undying appetite for such kinds of filmmaking, and that's fine, cause to each their own! But if you ask me, I could not enjoy the ride as much as I wished for.

Part of it is due to how turbulent & disorderly it had ultimately become! What was inaugurated as an inventive piece that comprises distinctive one-of-a-kind action, slowly turned itself into one tiring repetition. Add cheesy performances and a suboptimal write-up to that equation and we got ourselves a highly forgettable affair.

Director Jung has come to collect - in an exhausting, unwavering maelstrom of ambitious yet somehow derivative fist fights, shoot-outs, car chases and plane crashes, all shot with nauseating, nitrous-fuelled drones that appear caught in a perpetual tailspin. As a result, much of the action feels weightless and simulated, even when propped up by Won's insanely physical performance.

Carter is a protagonist for whom the laws of physics are merely a suggestion, and whose dramatic motivation is spoon-fed to him by inconsequential bit players between punch-ups, like cutscenes in a video game.

One time watch for the respect of Byung-gil Jung, who made The Villainess (2017).

First the things most people want to know: The story takes some snippets from the Matrix, Resident Evil at different places. Switches between English and Korean (mostly Korean), is way to long, and because its non stop high energy action and motion from its opening scene, the final conflict and resolve of the story is nothing more than coming off this speed trip to normal paced reality and a cheesy last second unended conflict scene too suggest it might lead to a sequel or just as a teaser.

Only near the end did it start to get a little boring, mainly because every fathomable cinematography angle and technique ever conceived in film history ran out and had to be recycled.

From a cinematography and filmmaker perspective It is an amazing film to watch, because it uses all kinds of controlled speed manipulation, angles and unedited camera moves that'll make you ponder how it was done. Lots of amazing drone, crane, rail, and angle manipulations I have never seen before.

If you like resident evil, then you know what your getting except this would be the MA-13 or Unrated version.

Some of the acting, mainly by the English speaking cast is poor, what I would expect from a low budget production using inexperienced actors and actresses, but there is nothing low budget about this movie other than the poorly executed and stiff dialog.

A great movie presents a level of believable authenticity, even when not realistic. For the most part Carter pulls this off, despite fighting sequences that would be totally impossible and unrealistic. So it meets that objective.

I gave it a 6 star rating because of the visually interesting cinematography. If i rated it entirely on the story, i might give it a 5 or less because its not very original in concept.

The fact that it was filmed entirely in Korea was a good decision from a filmmaker perspective and it makes sense, because a majority of this movie could not be filmed with live stunt work in the USA due to safety limitations.

It's a decent lazy day weekend movie.