Brief Story Line
Story was set in the 1970s in a small island in South Korea where the main source of income was sea diving by female divers known as haenyeo. Jin-sook (Yum Jung-ah - Cleaning Up TV series, Alienoid etc) whose family had been in the busines for long time worked together with few other divers, including her best friend Choon-ja (Kim Hye-soo - Under the Queen's Umbrella TV series, The Face Reader etc) and the young man who worked on the boat, named Jang Do-ri (Park Jeong-min - Sh**ting Stars TV series, Miracle: Letters to the President etc). He was always trying to get the attention of Boon (Go Min-si - Sweet Home TV series, Youth of May TV series etc), the young woman working in a cafe.
Due to the rapid decline of sea commodities they could collect, the divers decided to work as smugglers. However, they had to be cautious with the Customs officers led by Chief Lee (Kim Jong- soo - The Lies Within TV series, Samjin Company English Class etc) always tried to catch them in the act. It got further complicated when the infamous king of smuggling known as Sergeant Kwon (Zo In-sung - It's Alright, This is Love TV series, Escape from Mogadishu etc) came into the picture.
So what would happen to these women as they entered into such dangerous business? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
To be honest, aside from not too familiar with the main cast, I was also a bit skeptical since there were some influencers who praised this one with some hyperbolic sentences that based on past experience did not turn out to be as great as my expectation. However, I decided to go ahead with this movie because my wife was optimistic it would be good as she had high admiration to the amazing acting capabilities of the two female lead, Yum Jung-ah and Kim Hye-soo.
So I went to see this without expecting anything and thought just go with the flow. As it turned out though, I enjoyed the movie a lot. It started with the introduction of the haenyeo profession and their struggle, to the time they started to smuggle. All of this was done so seamlessly till the conflict became greater with the appearance of the king of smugglers that was very smoothly done. I got to hand it to the director Ryoo Seung-wan (The Battleship Island, The City of Violence etc) who provided great story telling and had me captivated with the characters.
In addition to showing us the hard life that the haenyeo experienced, the film also had some well crafted and violent fight sequence in the middle (which should not come as a surprise with the director's experience), plus some amazing underwater shots that looked awesome. The visual effects team really did a great job in doing so. The costume department, cinematographer and music department must be credited too for their realisticly created 1970s setting. Both of us really believed it was set during the period with the hair style, attires and of course the 70s Korean songs (even if we never heard of them, but we could feel they were famous songs during that time).
The story was certainly one of the factor that my wife and I enjoyed in this movie. The acting of the cast was great and I also think Go Min-si's character here was wonderfully written and she played her role perfectly. Sometimes she was the one that brought a bit of lighter moment in the film. There was even a bit of twist and a bit of surprise as well. Oh we also liked the ending of the movie and thought it as a satisfying conclusion.
So if you are still in doubt, just give it a try as I think you would find yourself enjoying the movie if those that I mentioned were what you were looking for. And no need to worry about the duration of 2 hours+ (without mid or post end credit scene) as you would not feel it. Besides, the movie itself is still brand new, only released in South Korea on July 26, 2023. So you can boast that you have seen it at the same weekend as the audience in its origin country.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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