Runtime: 111 minutes
Directed by: John H. Lee
Starring: Jung-Jae Lee, Beom-Su Lee, Jin Se-Yeon, Jung Joon-Ho... and Liam Neeson!
From: Several different South Korean companies
This is the movie I referred to a few days ago when I saw Inchon; needless to say, this is better than Inchon. I understand the mixed reviews but I did like this. I talk all about it below:
This is honestly a movie I did not know about until a few days ago, when I looked online to see what would be playing in the area this upcoming week and I came across what seemed to be a random South Korean movie. I was delighted to see something from that country, as unfortunately The Wailing won't be playing anywhere close by me that wouldn't require an entire day to make a trip to see it-that'll have to wait for the streaming services-and I found out that this was about the same battle covered in the infamous megabomb Inchon (which is why I finally saw that movie a few days ago; no surprise why “Inchon” is nowhere in the title for this film) and that playing General Douglas MacArthur was... Liam Neeson! I can say that he was better as the General than Laurence Olivier was, although Neeson wasn't in bad health at the time. When he spoke, he basically sounded like the Liam Neeson you see everything else.
It's a small role anyhow, as most of the focus on this movie about the Korean War of the early 1950's is on South Korean spies who try to disguise themselves as members of the army of North Korea, in order to gather intel that will help the troops capture Inchon. The first half of this is general spy stuff where they try to avoid detection as they get to get the needed info. After that, there's plenty of shootouts, blood, and people dying. No surprise about the last two things considering which country this is from. It is not brutal like some Korean films, but there are still some rough moments.
This does have its cliches-although definitely not as much as a Hollywood production-and I do understand why this has gotten mixed reviews as it's not a great movie. Yet, I happened to be entertained by this story. While I don't know how much of it actually happened in real life, what is shown was still entertaining to me; in addition I enjoyed the action scenes and all the carnage that resulted from it. The acting was fine overall and so was everything behind the camera. I did not expect this to be anything deep intellectually or offer any hard-hitting insights. This was released in its home country a few weeks ago and has done well so far; it's the type of thing to inspire the people of South Korea and instill a wave of patriotic pride.
A few other people were at my screening. I hope that one day I can see more Korean movies on the big screen and not just at the arthouse places but like with this film, at an AMC Theatres. Some of the films from the country I have seen already, I would have loved to have seen them theatrically. I can always dream, right?
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