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Reviews
Gukjesijang (2014)
A poignant and true story of many many Koreans in one family's ordeal.
This is a high context movie. Therefore, if you are not Koreans who lived in Korea in the past decades, you will certainly miss so many hidden cultural and historical cues. So, you need to be more forgiving to it. For example, there is a very short scene where a guy appears who says a short phrase about the future. The boys who cleaned his shoes in the movie did not know who he was. He is the founder of Hyyndai corporation. There 10s of such short high context cues.
So, this is really for Korean people.
The story is a fused story of omnibus short stories of Koreans who survived not only the war, but the harsh lives of 1950~2000.
Artistically, it is average. It is well done and tells the story well enough. Obviously there are exaggerations and mistakes. However, this is not a documentary at all. It is a movie. I see many people pointing out some errs in historical context. I challenge that it is extremely accurate in its overall depiction of Koreans.
It is one of the most dramatic stories based on a person/family's journey to present. It shows many aspects of Korean society with moving and great and miserable bits and pieces.
It is worth watching even if you are not Koreans.
Tomorrowland (2015)
This is one of the greatest. Bad critics affected by the monitor?
This is a great movie. As a show, as piece of art, as a good story, good action, and even good plot. I think it is misunderstood(perhaps too intellectual for most US people?).
This world is full of scares such as global warming, pop. explosion, energy crisis, terrorist attacks, nuclear explosion, etc. It is like some global endemic and if you do not agree with those scares and no sympathetic to those gloomy future of us , you are not or not a good person even.
This story has a great value. It is not a corny some fairy tale. It has all the cinematic components as a good movie, too. Good actors.
Myeong-ryang (2014)
80% realistic and not too inaccurate with some good scenes
I am Korean and biased.
In Korea, where I was growing up, Admiral Yi Sunshin was regarded someone omnipresent in everybody's life. He was not regarded as some kind of deity or a great hero. But he was regarded more like everyday household spirit (as a human). He is special in that way. He is not god, or legendary hero, but he is a person who is taking part of the greatest history of the Southern coastline. It is because he left a war diary that is ruthlessly plain and accurate and almost too dry. He was respected not only by his valour, great tactic, or special war hero characters, but he is so painfully plainly human who is sick all the time, folliwing rules, working so hard, minding other people with respect, and being practical, and tortured by his own people and yet did not give up such basic principles of life. He was respected for his personal quality and the 100% winning battle results was natural against Japanese Amadas.
This movie does not depict much of his personal quality you can glimpse when you read books about him including his own diary. This movie fails to describe the people around that era and people right next to him in my opinion. Much has been altered in the modern Korean people's views. They had a totally different philosophy and view of the world then. The perception of China and Japan by Koreans were different from nowadays.
What this movie succeeded in my opinion is that it for the first time tried to describe the particular battle of Myungryang with some good cinematic foundation. It is a bit corny and not perfect but overall, the battle was well studied and the combat scope was well depicted. Admiral Yi's war will be very hard to describe in pictures as he had extremely well pre-mediated plan/strategy before he engaged any sea battle. He was a perfectionist. So, it is hard to pick out all the critical elements he laied out playing his war game. He was a very serious and sophisticated person showing in military combats. So, it is not about a great hero with great anger and energy rampaging in enemy's territory with powerful fists.
The movie is slow a bit and the plot is not perfect. With some errors incorporated, too. However, the battle scene itself, if you carefully watch, is interesting and the visuals are not too bad. Although, I would have preferred more CGI work.
He used his life philosophy and principles in the battle ahead of weaponry and tactics. He did not give up and even with only 12 ships against over 300 ships, he made his best war strategy(not giving up again) and we can see the strategy there.
It was perhaps the most amazing battle in human history and this movie manages to be close to show it. Not quite but almost. So, my score for the great effort to achieve almost impossible job.
Foreign Body (1986)
It is an unusually candid movie. It depicts the world around mid 1900s
It is one of movies that poignantly depicts an era. It is plainly descriptive with many silly but candid admission of our time. A historical piece which can be used by future cinema researchers. I watched this when I was in early 20s. I thought it was a kind of silly porn because of the wrong summary of the movie. I think it failed badly in making money because marketers did not understand the value of the movie. Don't be fooled by the cover summary. I was surprised by the story then. I went to the UK to study and found out that the movie has some historical value. I am now in my 40s and I find it a very good movie. I think its average point should be around 8.2.
The music is great and comes in right times.