In the truce village of Panmunjom, located on the North-South Korean border in the so-called Joint Security Zone, there is an incident with fatalities on the northern side and casualties on the southern side. A representative of the neutral side is invited to look into the incident.
4k movies reviews
I hold Pak Chhanook’s directorial work in high esteem and respect, because I consider him a worthy successor and continuator of the main observer of Korean cinema as the quality Kim Ki-duk. And here, looking at his filmography, you can safely agree or already add to my thought, because this is the director who created the trilogy of revenge, starting with “Sympathy for Mr. Revenge”, continuing with “Oldboy” and finishing with “Sympathy for Mrs. Revenge” besides this, making an incredibly stylish vampire movie “Thirst”, “I am a Cyborg But It’s OK” and a number of other worthy projects. This movie was the only one in his oeuvre that I haven’t seen, and after watching it just recently I didn’t regret at all for leaving such a “tasty” project for last. It is not for nothing that this film won a number of prestigious awards at home, made it to the Berlin Film Festival and is in the top of the best films of the famous director Quentin Tarantino. Definitely a masterpiece and just a great movie. Though the film started as a purely military detective in the vein of “Clayton’s Base” by John McTiernan, it grew into a full fledged drama, with all the advantages it had, which pretty much knock out the film from the crowd of other grayish war pictures. It is very difficult to make pictures like this, while keeping a tolerant narrative, and director Pak Chhanuk succeeded very well, not only keeping a tolerant grasp on which side is right, Southern or Northern, but also breaking the film into a full war movie, which evokes anti-war thoughts not through zombification and agitation, as many WWII movies suffered from, but through a seemingly entertaining story of entertaining cinema. The shooting scenes of South and North Korean military servicemen, interpreted differently in the course of the movie, are shot very stylishly and beautifully, just like the movie itself. A very smooth, fast-paced and interesting film that manages to touch your soul and make you think. It is a perfect combination of food for eyes and mind because Chang-goo’s films perfectly fit those important human relations in the background of some big events or conflicts, which perfectly show true essence of a man and his cruelty towards himself and others that each of us notices in ourselves but through the examples of such pictures.
The history of the confrontation between North Korea and South Korea was raised by the Koreans themselves more than once, in the same super hit “Shiri” for example. It seems the topic should have tired long ago, but no, not knowing whose merits are so great here, the screenwriters or the author of the novel on which the movie is based, I’ll definitely read the second film. It is quite unfortunate to see the Country divided into two camps and seemingly blood brothers forced to be enemies to each other. The story itself began and progressed to a certain point perfectly from a military detective perspective and even sent me personally away from John McTiernan’s “Clayton Base” in terms of associations. The best thing in the movie is that the script doesn’t circle around one genre limitation, revealing besides the detective aspect and the important dramatic aspect connected with the years-long “hidden” war between Republic Korea, the comedy element with some rather sweet and funny moments which reduces the finale to a purely Korean thrashy without any signs of cheapness. The outcome was really unexpected, and the finale is framed though a melodramatic note. I liked it first of all by the fact that it had to end this way to be right.
A special thanks to the actors. All four performers in the main roles did just fine. Lee Byunhong is a famous actor not only in Korea but also in the United States, and, considering his talent and decent acting, there is no reason to doubt it. His character is undoubtedly the one who cooked up this mess and saw it off by the end of the picture, and did it very realistic, I believed him. Also we should not forget simply gorgeous game of Son Kankho, for which he received a worthy number of awards, perhaps one of the most correct and worthy characters of the picture. The rest of the cast also played no less well. And on that purely patriarchal note, let’s not forget the lead actress Lee Enge. The actress’ appearance is not the brightest, but she makes up for it very well and makes up for it with her gorgeous acting. Despite the fact that her importance in the movie is less than the above quartet, she played so well that she is remembered.
I liked the music a lot, one of those rare cases where I liked the music so much when watching it that I downloaded the soundtrack album. Very skillful work, gorgeous orchestral music and just fabulous violin playing. For a thriller, the music is really very cool, although for a drama it’s a bit harsh.
Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (90.0 Mb/s)
Resolution: 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Korean: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Korean: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles
English, French.
