The Battleship Island

The Battleship Island (2017)

Runtime: 132 minutes

Directed by: Ryoo Seung-Wan

Starring: Hwang Jung-Min, So Ji-Sub, Song Joong-Ki, Lee Jung-Hyun, Kim Su-An

From: Filmmaker R&K

After way too long, I finally saw a Korean movie... and I got to see this theatrically. I talk about it below: 

Yesterday, I made a day trip to Tampa. It was not the only thing I did, but the main event was seeing a pair of movies at an AMC Theatres; I'll review the other one tomorrow. I figured that if I had the chance to see a South Korean film on the big screen, I should take that chance. It's pretty rare one comes down here that I think I'll enjoy and don't have reservations about, which is why I did not seek out The Handmaiden. The last one for me was last August with the great Train to Busan, which unfortunately had two awful audience members that I actually would have confronted after the movie if they wouldn't have bolted out of there... and I am not a confrontational person at all. I wish people by them would have told the two to shut their cakeholes, but thankfully the crowd at this screening was much better, although there weren't many people around. More on the audience later, as they do play a part in how I rate this.

I am not surprised this has a mixed reaction here and elsewhere. Me, I can rate it highly despite some uneven moments. It's in 1945, where Japan has occupied Korea, and various Koreans are forced to work in a coal mine on Hashima Island, which is best known now for movie fans as the location where Raoul Silva lived in Skyfall. Then, Japan used forced labor, and knowing this was a Korean movie there was a chance this would be a punishing sit as it could show just how brutal it was to be there. Thankfully I did not think it was a grueling experience, although the Japanese are shown doing some horrible things and there are plenty of graphic moments. There is carnage seen-how much of it, I dare not say-and when it happens, I was glad I could see this theatrically. There also is the usage of 40's jazz... some of the people we follow are musicians in a band, so sometimes you hear that genre of music.

It's a typical modern Korean movie, including there being a character known as “crying child.” The world is brought to life pretty well, whether you were down in the coal mines or living in squalor above ground. I am biased towards movies from this country, but I will note that the movie worked for the audience. Most of the people at my screening were Korean, and whether it was nationalistic pride over seeing their countrymen doing battle with the enemy and/or what happened in the final 10 minutes, I heard some of them become obviously emotional. I know the experience of watching this at home won't be quite the same for me or anyone reading this-I am glad I got to watch it in a big way and hopefully I'll have more opportunities to watch Korean movies theatrically.