kmovie: The Restless
Mar. 30th, 2008 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreThe Restless is a Korean movie about a vagrant swordsman named Yi-Gwak. It sucks to be Yi-Gwak. Observe:
1. Yi-Gwak can see spirits. When he sees the spirit of a young boy in his village, he tells his fiancee, So-Hwa. So-Hwa tells the boy's mother, and she convinces her son to move on. All is well, yes? WRONG! The villagers decide that it's So-Hwa who can see spirits and burn her alive right in front of him. For added angst, she's wearing her wedding clothes at the time.
2. While scattering her ashes at the river, Yi-Gwak is approached by the commander of the Chuhyongdae, the Royal Demon Hunters, and invited into their ranks. Soon, he becomes a master swordsman and their second in command, and is given a sword that can lay spirits to rest. All is well, yes? WRONG! A while back, the commander's pregnant wife was raped by nobles, leading to her suicide. When he thinks the time is right, the commander leads a raid on the palace, against Yi-Gwak's objections. All the Chuyondae are wiped out save for Yi-Gwak.
3. Yi-Gwak becomes a vagrant, and is branded an outlaw. After saving a village from demons, the villagers drug his meal so they can collect the bounty on his head, and he flees to hide in the forest before the drug takes affect. What gratitude.
4. Yi-Gwak wakes up in Midheaven, the place between Earth and Heaven where souls go before moving on. Except that he's not dead. No, we aren't really told how he got to be there while still alive. While he's still trying to figure that out, the city there is attacked. During the fight he sees the Chuneen-a guardian of Midheaven, I assume I'd recognize the word if I were Korean-Yon-hwa, and realizes that she is actually So-hwa. YAY! Right? WRONG! Yon-hwa has no memories of her life on Earth. That's ok, he'll just stare at her adoringly until it's time to fight again, even if she does kinda think he's nuts.
5. BUT WAIT! The guys who attacked Yon-hwa? The Chuhyongdae, who want to take over Midheaven. No, we don't know why, but they're doing a pretty good job of it. First, though, they have to catch Yon-hwa, who has the spirit of the ruler of Midheaven in her keeping.
So, he's an outlaw, everyone he knows is dead, he's somehow stuck in the afterlife, his True Love has amnesia, and all his old buddies want to kill her, and are willing to go through him to get her, even if they will angst a lot over it. But hey, what's all that and a few thousand demon ninjas in the face of True Love? (Ok, fine, they aren't ninjas since they're Korean, but I don't know the proper term, so they're demon ninjas.)
Uhm, yeah. So, crucial plot points mentioned above are never really explained, and a lot of the acting consists of staring(and not in the Jason Bourne "convey 5000 levels of angst in a single stare" way) and it's a superangstfest, but it's rather fun, has an interesting concept, great fights, and some interesting special effects(when people die in the afterlife, they disintegrate into what looks like paper burning to cinders.) And, for all the it's a "true love angainst the universe" angstfest, it keeps the mush and melodrama under control.
And now, pics.
1. Yi-Gwak can see spirits. When he sees the spirit of a young boy in his village, he tells his fiancee, So-Hwa. So-Hwa tells the boy's mother, and she convinces her son to move on. All is well, yes? WRONG! The villagers decide that it's So-Hwa who can see spirits and burn her alive right in front of him. For added angst, she's wearing her wedding clothes at the time.
2. While scattering her ashes at the river, Yi-Gwak is approached by the commander of the Chuhyongdae, the Royal Demon Hunters, and invited into their ranks. Soon, he becomes a master swordsman and their second in command, and is given a sword that can lay spirits to rest. All is well, yes? WRONG! A while back, the commander's pregnant wife was raped by nobles, leading to her suicide. When he thinks the time is right, the commander leads a raid on the palace, against Yi-Gwak's objections. All the Chuyondae are wiped out save for Yi-Gwak.
3. Yi-Gwak becomes a vagrant, and is branded an outlaw. After saving a village from demons, the villagers drug his meal so they can collect the bounty on his head, and he flees to hide in the forest before the drug takes affect. What gratitude.
4. Yi-Gwak wakes up in Midheaven, the place between Earth and Heaven where souls go before moving on. Except that he's not dead. No, we aren't really told how he got to be there while still alive. While he's still trying to figure that out, the city there is attacked. During the fight he sees the Chuneen-a guardian of Midheaven, I assume I'd recognize the word if I were Korean-Yon-hwa, and realizes that she is actually So-hwa. YAY! Right? WRONG! Yon-hwa has no memories of her life on Earth. That's ok, he'll just stare at her adoringly until it's time to fight again, even if she does kinda think he's nuts.
5. BUT WAIT! The guys who attacked Yon-hwa? The Chuhyongdae, who want to take over Midheaven. No, we don't know why, but they're doing a pretty good job of it. First, though, they have to catch Yon-hwa, who has the spirit of the ruler of Midheaven in her keeping.
So, he's an outlaw, everyone he knows is dead, he's somehow stuck in the afterlife, his True Love has amnesia, and all his old buddies want to kill her, and are willing to go through him to get her, even if they will angst a lot over it. But hey, what's all that and a few thousand demon ninjas in the face of True Love? (Ok, fine, they aren't ninjas since they're Korean, but I don't know the proper term, so they're demon ninjas.)
Uhm, yeah. So, crucial plot points mentioned above are never really explained, and a lot of the acting consists of staring(and not in the Jason Bourne "convey 5000 levels of angst in a single stare" way) and it's a superangstfest, but it's rather fun, has an interesting concept, great fights, and some interesting special effects(when people die in the afterlife, they disintegrate into what looks like paper burning to cinders.) And, for all the it's a "true love angainst the universe" angstfest, it keeps the mush and melodrama under control.
And now, pics.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 06:18 am (UTC)Out of curiosity, have you seen the China/Korea coproduction, Musa? The hero there is also a star in that, playing a Korean slave and spearman in love with a Chinese princess, and I swear, he has the same wig, the same outfit(aside from flashbacks and the end) and a lot of the scenes are choreographically almost identical. And he does angsty staring quite well.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 06:44 am (UTC)And nope, haven't seen Musa -- I've seen very little Korean stuff compared to all the years of wallowing in chambara and wuxia flicks.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 07:12 am (UTC)I need to see Bride With White Hair. i've heard a lot of good things about it. (Yet, don't know the plot...)
This has it's share of wuxia crack, including Our Heroine using storms of rose petals to fend off villains, possession, and villains who have (for lack of a better word) tentacle-like chains. It is fairly subdued compared to what it could be, though(and compared to some non-supernatural wuxia, for that matter) and pretty well done despite some plot holes.
Some of the Korean stuff is pretty good...I'm also very fond of The Duelist and Shadowless Sword, but some of it is...odd. Bichunmoo comes to mind. Good story, but kinda confusingly told, and with occasionally odd cinematography.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 09:08 am (UTC)BWWH I couldn't help but fall in love with, it had two of my favorite leads (Brigitte Lin, who I've girlcrushed over since Swordsman III, and the late Leslie Cheung, here with his good looks dirtied up a bit with a tasty layer of wu xia style grunge) in a duty vs. honor, enemies-as-lovers tragic supernatural plot, with absolutely lush visuals and a strikingly sensual love scene for early-90s HK wu xia. Cheung's character is the heir to a powerful martial clan, but he's uncomfortable with the pressures and politics of his position. Brigitte is a nameless orphan girl adopted by wolves who's been brought up to be the assassin for a hill-tribe cult (led by the evil fraternal Siamese twins -- the male twin is madly in lust with her, to his sibling's endless amusement -- she doesn't return the interest, of course.) They meet and fall hard for each other -- not quite at first sight, as Cheung's character has been haunted since childhood by his memories of an encounter with the wolf-girl -- and plan to do whatever is necessary to abdicate from their clans so they can have a peaceful life together...but of course things can't possibly work out that smoothly.
There's a sequel, but it doesn't have the same magic as the original -- the leads from the first film play only a small part in it and most of it is a more standard HK "plucky mismatched band go up to fight against impossible odds" sort of action plot compared to the epic romantic tragedy of the first film. It has some good moments and charming characters and it does bring a good final resolution to the story, but it's just not as magical as the first film.
This music video gives you a fairly non-spoilery idea of the visuals, including some fine Leslie Cheung hairporn:
no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 04:43 pm (UTC)Korean stuff in general seems to have caught on slower than Japanese and Chinese stuff. Now, though, there seem to be more and more manhwa coming out(though to be honest, while I've found some really good manhwa, I tend to bounce off most of it hard) and most of the asian tv dramas that get licensed are Korean.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-01 11:47 am (UTC)