Story clarity was kinda murky, and with that I mean "who did what & why". A lot of the, uh, extreme decisions made by characters are not based on reasons the filmmakers communicate in any way.
Again, I wish I could view the theatrical cut to see if that's any better.
ahh..I did not get it can somebody tell me the real motive of his killing? but put spoiler on it coz' somebody…
from Wikipedia: Yoo Young-chul explained his motives in front of a TV camera saying "Women shouldn't be sluts, and the rich should know what they've done."
After some intro / setup, there's what feels like an hour and half of Fitzcarraldo, and later on one of those…
What's the point of not finding out who sent the traitor / assassins? Is it just because knowing it's his father would irrevocably damage their relationship? Especially unconvincing that Crown Prince kills this very useful information source mere minutes after being unable to stab an actual assassin.
Beyond shooting about two arrows and calming down his crazy people once or twice, the CP does very little that makes him seem like he could be the confident, well, king he is in the final scene. He's a new character once he embarks from that boat.
--
I find it very unclear how they actually escape from the mountain fort. They push a few burning Mad Max vehicles at the Japanese, and then we teleport onto a beach where they're chased by them.
It was a huge waste how "the barbarian" aka the captured-yet-hyper-loyal Jurchen fighter ran into his death at the end. His ingenuity showed him to be Joseon's leading administrative organizer & black ops agent.
After some intro / setup, there's what feels like an hour and half of Fitzcarraldo, and later on one of those generic movies about a small heroic group being attacked by an overwhelming force is spliced in.
Like other posters wrote, there's a lot of nice nature to look at.
Dunno if it's edited in CGI blood or just particularly dark red fake blood, but I kept noticing it. Good combat scenes otherwise.
The cast was good with a lot of familiar faces; only Park Ho San as the king (father) at the start didn't seem kingly at all.
I don't buy the crown prince's character development, or the other ML's affection for him.
Another old time war movie. Watching his because of Yeo Jin Goo and all the positive review. Just one time watch…
[intro text] "The practice of the rich hiring the poor to serve their compulsory military duties is prevalent but impossible to stop. Near the Northern Border, some men pursue this military substitute jobs as a profession, known as Proxy Soldiers." -from Sejong Chronicles.
------
[ending crown prince voice over] Do you know why there are two dragons on that flag? One represents the King and the other, the people, would it not?
[end text] "Those who took refuge in the mountains and also the other subjects responded to Prince Gwanghae's call to rise against the invaders to risk their life and kill the enemy. This became the driving force for driving out the enemy, and rebuilding the country later." -from Seonjo chronicles.
There's some K-drama golden rules the writers seemingly didn't know about, like how much precisely they're supposed…
I really wish they wouldn't have done the same kind of villain as Haechi – I was already worn out from that one. The harmless chef suddenly becomes a mass murderer just because the manhwa needs a surprise twist. He does some horrendously evil things: slaughtering a village of innocents for no particular reason, and a child from his own family too. But afterwards, he's tame. His evilness is in the fridge. He and the ML could kill each other a dozen times, but it doesn't happen – Haechi has an elaborate explanation that you can't just kill a prince repeated from time to time, but there's still enough opportunities here for out-of-palace murder anyway. The villain could do all sorts of horrendous things to the FL, but he just never does, so he isn't a real threat much after his initial evil deeds.
OTOH nobody really thinks of punishing him for his evilness. The widows don't in the end, and the king just doesn't care because he's laughably easy to manipulate.
There's some K-drama golden rules the writers seemingly didn't know about, like how much precisely they're supposed to punish their characters for moral transgressions, but they stick to one I'd really love to see just ONE single exception for: "based on manhwa" infallibly implies plot problems. Some characters don't make much sense, many plot points fizzle out and disappear or stop making much sense in hindsight, others are never pursued or handwaved away in the most arbitrary of ways. Sometimes the ML is way smarter and more competent than anyone could possibly be – you might like or dislike that. In this particular show there's also a bunch of bad dialogues from time to time, but without a command of the language it's of course hard to tell how much is the fault of Netflix' translator.
I liked the first third or so, when it was a fluffy action comedy with a bit of a hunt for the truth. When it tried to get more serious, it also started to drag a bit. The ML does great in the acting department, and nobody's overly poor in their roles. The FL is too often like a modern teenager in her expressions – she's not bad here, but definitely not great. Child actress Park Da Yeon as Hwang Aeng Do got to hog all the good comedy lines for herself.
Looking at history, the villains usually get away with it and write history. I mean the ending was either going…
For me it kinda went downhill the moment the villain appeared, I only liked him as a chef. The whole storyline from the villain's appearance on feels like a toned down Haechi.
In the end nobody even cares anymore that he not only killed unarmed women but also a child from his own family.
The plot is somewhat copy-pasted from The Negotiator ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120768/ ), infused with higher stakes, remixed with arms dealing and a Thailand angle.
The main thing the 'original' has over this is smarter leads, whereas here more of the skillset budget went into flirting.
Both movies built their plots on shaky ground, albeit with differently shaped logical flaws.
I enjoyed the movie until the ending. I was not convinced that the bad guys would not get away with their misdeeds,…
The implication definitely was that justice was served the legal way. They probably didn't have minutes left to show them rot in jail, that is even common in 3x or 5x as long dramas.
A lot of the, uh, extreme decisions made by characters are not based on reasons the filmmakers communicate in any way.
Again, I wish I could view the theatrical cut to see if that's any better.
The Chaser https://mydramalist.com/1538-the-chaser made much more sense, with its pedestrianly simple plot.
The various surviving IMDb forums have threads on the plot too:
https://moviechat.org/tt1230385/Hwanghae/58c87d58d1ea5c147071df71/MANY-Plot-questions
https://moviechat.org/tt1230385/Hwanghae/58c87d5bd1ea5c147071dfe4/Things-that-need-to-be-answered-SPOILERS
https://moviechat.org/tt1230385/Hwanghae/58c87d59d1ea5c147071dfa3/Any-Korean-who-can-explain-this-for-me-Spoiler-Alert?reply=58c87d59d1ea5c147071dfa5
https://www.filmboards.com/board/t/MANY-Plot-questions-48723/
https://www.filmboards.com/board/t/Things-that-need-to-be-answered:-SPOILERS-48754/
https://www.filmboards.com/board/p/474712/permalink/#p474712
Mine's 2h20m — that "Director's Cut" already felt very long.
- yes, she is alive at the end, with nobody to pick her up at the train station
Yoo Young-chul explained his motives in front of a TV camera saying "Women shouldn't be sluts, and the rich should know what they've done."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoo_Young-chul
(Very quick reply 💞)
Especially unconvincing that Crown Prince kills this very useful information source mere minutes after being unable to stab an actual assassin.
Beyond shooting about two arrows and calming down his crazy people once or twice, the CP does very little that makes him seem like he could be the confident, well, king he is in the final scene. He's a new character once he embarks from that boat.
--
I find it very unclear how they actually escape from the mountain fort. They push a few burning Mad Max vehicles at the Japanese, and then we teleport onto a beach where they're chased by them.
It was a huge waste how "the barbarian" aka the captured-yet-hyper-loyal Jurchen fighter ran into his death at the end. His ingenuity showed him to be Joseon's leading administrative organizer & black ops agent.
Like other posters wrote, there's a lot of nice nature to look at.
Dunno if it's edited in CGI blood or just particularly dark red fake blood, but I kept noticing it. Good combat scenes otherwise.
The cast was good with a lot of familiar faces; only Park Ho San as the king (father) at the start didn't seem kingly at all.
I don't buy the crown prince's character development, or the other ML's affection for him.
"The practice of the rich hiring the poor to serve their compulsory military duties is prevalent but impossible to stop.
Near the Northern Border, some men pursue this military substitute jobs as a profession, known as Proxy Soldiers."
-from Sejong Chronicles.
------
[ending crown prince voice over]
Do you know why there are two dragons on that flag?
One represents the King and the other, the people, would it not?
[end text]
"Those who took refuge in the mountains and also the other subjects responded to Prince Gwanghae's call to rise against the invaders to risk their life and kill the enemy.
This became the driving force for driving out the enemy, and rebuilding the country later."
-from Seonjo chronicles.
But afterwards, he's tame. His evilness is in the fridge.
He and the ML could kill each other a dozen times, but it doesn't happen – Haechi has an elaborate explanation that you can't just kill a prince repeated from time to time, but there's still enough opportunities here for out-of-palace murder anyway.
The villain could do all sorts of horrendous things to the FL, but he just never does, so he isn't a real threat much after his initial evil deeds.
OTOH nobody really thinks of punishing him for his evilness. The widows don't in the end, and the king just doesn't care because he's laughably easy to manipulate.
In this particular show there's also a bunch of bad dialogues from time to time, but without a command of the language it's of course hard to tell how much is the fault of Netflix' translator.
I liked the first third or so, when it was a fluffy action comedy with a bit of a hunt for the truth. When it tried to get more serious, it also started to drag a bit. The ML does great in the acting department, and nobody's overly poor in their roles. The FL is too often like a modern teenager in her expressions – she's not bad here, but definitely not great.
Child actress Park Da Yeon as Hwang Aeng Do got to hog all the good comedy lines for herself.
The whole storyline from the villain's appearance on feels like a toned down Haechi.
In the end nobody even cares anymore that he not only killed unarmed women but also a child from his own family.
I was entirely expecting Nok Du to become king, seeing how similar this thing is to Haechi.
Would very much have preferred scenes after the queen's island arrival instead of 75% of the stuff that makes up the final hour.
(& "joke triangle" stuff.)
The main thing the 'original' has over this is smarter leads, whereas here more of the skillset budget went into flirting.
Both movies built their plots on shaky ground, albeit with differently shaped logical flaws.