Yesterday my wife and I were thinking of seeing a new movie playing since Saturday but then she realized that a Korean movie which had been shown earlier from Wednesday had 2 of her favorite actors in it. Hence we decided to see this one at the 1.20 PM show. Without further ado, let's get on to the movie now.
Brief Story Line (SPOILER ALERT!)
Set in the rather ancient period in Joseon country, Prince Ganglim/Lee Chung (Hyun Bin - The Negotiation, The Swindlers etc) had just returned from Qing country with his loyal personal servant Hak Soo (Jung Man-sik - Kundo: Age of the Rampant etc) only to find out that the first village he arrived at had been damaged by monsters/zombies. He met with the so-called rebels led by Park Eul-yong (Jo Woo-jin - Inside Man, Steel Rain etc) and somehow befriended them including with a great archer named Deok-hee (Lee Sun-bin - Missing 9 TV series etc).
Meanwhile, the military minister Kim Ja-joon (Jang Dong-gun - Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War, All About Eve TV series etc) was having a plan of his own which would dangerously affect the nation. He also secretly tried to kill Ganglim as it might ruin his plan.
With the danger from the zombies as well as the deceitful plan of Ja-joon, Ganglim had to do what he never wanted in the first place, to be responsible of saving his country.
End of Brief Story Line
OK, for me the reason I was interested in seeing the movie was the fact it had zombies and it was said to be from the makers of Train to Busan which I loved a lot. However, when I checked in the largest movie database, I could not find the names involved in these 2 movies, as it was having different directors, producers or writers. So I honestly could not understand the references made, except for the possibility I had to see all the names in the website. Regardless if it was indeed having the same makers or not, we should think of this movie as an individual film and not compare it due to its only similarity was the zombies.
This was actually my first ever experience seeing a period action Korean movie even though there were tons of their movies and TV series set during those times. So it need a little getting used to, to get to know the characters (especially the ones in the palace) as they were wearing same type of clothes with similar appearances. The immediately recognizable character would definitely the minister Kim Ja-joon who was played excellently to my opinion by Jang Dong-gun (whom my wife could not stop admiring his good looks even when he did not seem to be at his best). After a while though, when we finally knew what was happening in the castle, and also when the zombies started to increase heavily in numbers, the movie became a lot more exciting. In here those zombies could sometimes be very fast, but at other times slow (which I found a bit inconsistent).
The things that I loved from this movie would definitely be the action sequence of the fight with zombies. Hyun Bin was amazing in his sword play and fight scenes and that finale fight scene was fantastic. It really satisfied me in term of the action part and both Hyun Bin and Jang Dong-gun really suited their roles. Some of the supporting characters despite having lesser screen time were also good in providing the dramatic moments (but few others did not leave impression). And yes, like any other Korean movie, this one got plenty of those melodramatic & emotional moments, especially towards the final fight. It was as if the director purposely put all of them into those 10-15 minutes to set us up with the grand finale. Btw, this movie was directed by Kim Sung-hoon who also happened to direct another Hyun Bin action movie Confidential Assignment.
For a movie with duration of > 2 hours, this one surprisingly did not feel overly long. Although it did drained a bit of energy due to those emotional scenes which really affected my wife. The zombie effects were pretty decent, the angle of scenes taken from above were nicely done, giving us the rather terrifying sense of the huge amount of zombies. After finishing the movie, I felt that it did not focus entirely on the zombie survival story but it was combined with some patriotic sense plus the power struggle. This was what I felt set itself apart from other typical zombie movie. But whether it actually fit the criteria the zombie movie lovers liked, it may depend on the preference itself.
Overall, I think this was an entertaining period zombie drama movie. We loved this film's action sequence, the performance of Hyun Bin and Jang Dong-gun and even the melodramatic scenes. But we could not say that this was our most favorite zombie movie. It was an enjoyable movie and we did have good time while watching it in the theater. Those looking for such qualities in a Korean movie, should be entertained by this film.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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