Windfighters - Les Guerriers du ciel

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.

South Korea's answer to TOP GUN (1986) -- SOAR INTO THE SUN (a.k.a. R2B: RETURN TO BASE) is a big-budget blockbuster tries to replicate the Hollywood-style of filmmaking mostly found in any summer movie tentpole. It certainly has that showy and expensive look, particularly for its many impressive aerial stunts (more on that later). But writer-director Kim Dong-Won botches everything up with too many cheesy melodrama and mawkish sentimentality borderlined into self-parody. No wonder the movie ends up underperformed at the domestic box-office.

In this embarrassingly lackluster movie, the story centers on Jang Tae-Hun (Rain), a cocky young pilot of the South Korean Air Force's elite Black Eagles squad who gets expelled of the team, following from his dangerous daredevil stunt at an air show. As a punishment, he is immediately transferred to the 21 Combat Unit, which is led by Park Dae-Seo (Kim Sung-Su). Meanwhile, it doesn't take long before he makes enemy with an ace pilot Lee Cheol-Hee (Yu Jun-Sang), who particularly hate each other. Naturally, they prepare to engage in a flight contest to see which among of them emerge as the best pilot in the 21 Combat Unit. Of course, such genre movie like that wouldn't be complete without an obligatory love interest. Enter Sgt. Yoo Se-Young (Shin Se-Kyung), a failed pilot-turned-head of maintenance who loves to act cool and doesn't particularly talks much, even though Tae-Hun likes her very much.

Clocking at 113 minutes, I must admit that watching SOAR INTO THE SUN is seriously a test of patience. The first half is especially a huge letdown, in which the story drags too much that goes into nowhere. Most of the time we are forced to sit through a long-winded stretch of some lame romantic comedy (particularly the one involving Tae-Hun and Se-Young) found in Korean TV drama, and not to mention, many other annoying subplots. If Kim Dong-Won is trying hard to be funny, then he fails miserably. Even by the time the movie reaches the second half with a sudden change of dramatic tone, it's already too late and too little to redeem everything.

Still, those are looking forward for some sensory thrills will be excited by the aforementioned aerial stunts. The two climactic highlights -- the aerial battle within the city of Seoul and the explosive finale -- are undeniably breathtaking with swooping cameraworks and magnificent sound effects that they are best seen in a big screen theaters.

Too bad that's the only good thing about this movie. The rest is simply a monumental waste of time. If that's not insulting enough, the cast is a total disappointment who are all nothing more than one-note stereotypical characters. Rain, who completed this movie before heading off for his obligatory national service, gives an unremarkable performance who spends most of the time looking too cheesy or (ahem) cutesy. Sure, he does show some "seriousness" towards the second half, but by then, it's really hard to take him seriously. As for the rest of the supporting actors, the less said the better.

So much for a so-called movie specially released in remembrance of the 60th anniversary of the Korean War.

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.

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.