MovieChat Forums > Musa (2001) Discussion > The best war movie ever!

The best war movie ever!

posted 21 years ago by Riche-3
27 replies | jump to latest

If you like Braveheart, you are going to love this movie. Visually, it's stunning. The fight scenes are extremly brutal and beautifully shot. It's a display of pure heroism where people fight and die with honor. The heroes are awesomely cool characters and will make you cheer more than once(especially the young spearman and the old archer) and the princess in distress is none other than the exquisite Zhang Yiyi.
The story is one of hopeless love, honor, integrity, responsibility and bravoura.
I was able to see this film at this year's Fantasia festival in Montreal, Canada. And I just ordered the dvd. If you want ot buy Musa, head to http://www.hkflix.com

[–] janus3 20 years ago

this movie is coming to the us in januray, looking forward to this one.

[–] AmicableDead 20 years ago

The movie is already out on DVD in the U.S.

[–] janus3 20 years ago

hmmmmm, best buy and circuit city have it coming out 1-20-04, it'll be a newer version in DTS.

[–] KoreanFilm-Fan 20 years ago

One of the best for sure, reminds me of Kurosawa's epics and Ju Jin-mo reminds me of the extremely cool Toshiro Mifune.

[–] Sensei_Tohru 20 years ago

Its a shame that the international version is cut, but I'm still getting it anyway.

Haven't seen Musa yet, but decided to get it to see what it was like. I'll report back when I've seen it in a few days.

[–] Sensei_Tohru 20 years ago

Well I've seen it and was impressed by the way the characters acted in the film. For example, you might start liking a character, but in the next scene they do something which you don't like. Therefore, the characters come across as real people because there always something you don't like about a person in real life. It is difficult to describe, but there are few films that have done this.

Anyway, great film. Highly recommended.

[–] Darkmire 20 years ago

There was some pretty bad points for me though :

Lack of characterization for the spear-man

Some of the fantastic aspects of the film , the flying spears and axes ... woohoo ??!? Wtf ???

Yeah ... I mean yes they do something which you dont like in the next scene , but they kind of act out of character .

It was fine though with some unnecessary dialogue and such ...

Not that impressed though , i would choose The Last Samurai or Troy over it any time .

Silence, is the sound of nature.

[–] Sensei_Tohru 20 years ago

There is a lot more aspects of charecterization in the full 160 minute cut of the film. I don't know if you saw this version or the international version which has had 30 minutes taken out of it.

[–] An_elephant 20 years ago

I dont usually flame movies, I rather defend them :). Anyway, to compare this movie with Kurosawas classics or Toshiro Mifune's superb acting (and his immense coolnes ^^) is a sacrilege.

Kurosawa never made movies where the heroes were like immortal superheroes... And compare Mifune with Ju Jin-mo... Hmmm...

Now dont get me wrong. This was a pretty good movie, with some really nice scenes, but to compare it with the above-mentioned is like comparing Braveheart with Air Force One.

Hehehe, almost made me laugh when I saw that this was compared to Kurosawa, thought it was a joke, but well...

I dont want to offend you, but I do wonder which Kurosawa films u've seen and in which way you think this is worthy to be put in the same box. It has some obvious influences from 7 samuraj, but not one scene worthy Kurosawa. Its not the movie that im rather upset about, its the comparison.

Greetings
/E

[–] sinthetikdevil 20 years ago

He said it REMINDS him of Kurosawa, he never compared it to his work. Just like Last Samurai reminded me of Kurosawa because well...there were SAMURAI in it, lol. Now if he said it's as good as Kurosawa's films then I'd be on your side. Same with the Mifune thing, he never compared them, just said he was reminded of Mifune.

I'm not trying to be an ass, I just think the guy was not meaning to compare Musa in any way to Kurosawa's work or Mifune, he was just reminded of them, probably due to the setting and certain costumes perhaps.

All things aside I love Mifune and Kurosawa, I'm currently attempting to buy up all of Criterion's Kurosawa releases. Watched Sanjuro again fully restored and it was just as great as I remembered.

[–] highvoltedge 19 years ago

> Kurosawa never made movies where the heroes were like immortal superheroes... And compare Mifune with Ju Jin-mo... Hmmm...

How are they immortal if they all died? well the archer guy survived, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, I guess I do have to agree with the comparison thing. you can't really compare this kind of movie with classics from the 50s and 60s. They didn't have the same kinds of special effects and such.

[–] theunbeholden 13 years ago

Vampires are immortal, yet they can die. Immortal just means incredible hard to kill, that are not susceptible to natural death. But have to be defeated in battle... yeah these guys are close to immortal as it gets.

[–] Kujo1 20 years ago

I agree with the subject of this post. I just saw this film today, and I don't think I've scene a better war film. It has some of the best battle scenes shot on film. They are no-holds barred brutal, but at the same-time beautiful. I'll go on record saying this is one of the best films I've ever scene.

[–] lllphaQlll 20 years ago

this movie was so hyped up by friends and reviews i had seen so i was really looking forward to seeing it. this may be this very reason why i just couldn't get into it. i agree the battle scenes were tight but i just couldn't get myself to give a damn about the characters or what happened to them.

also...they did try for the realism but if a guy is goin to take on 15 guys by himself...i wanna see some over the top nicely choreagraphed kung fu!! and it wasn't like he charged into the fray facing impossible odds only once...(i wanna to say how many but it'll probably be an exaggerated number)...regardless it happened more than once and the only thing that saved the scenes were the satisfying brutal and gory attacks. i must admit i was not ready.

[–] 20 years ago

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[–] li-mu-bai 18 years ago

I bought it after already seeing it.

You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.
Shine on you crazy diamond.

[–] goranurosevic-1 18 years ago

Braveheart is pathetic compared to this one :-) Real masterpiece!

[–] 18 years ago

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[–] thegovernator 17 years ago

yeah I and many others agree with OP that this was a helluva good movie but not the best war movie.

THIS MOVIE ROCKS!!

[–] samsblood 17 years ago

"u people are retarded? or koreean?"

What's with the Korea-bashing out of the blue? You didn't like the movie? Fine, I don't think it's the greatest movie ever either, although there are some parts that are worth seeing. But you're completely out of line making insulting insinuations about a whole people over it. And no, the back-handed compliment for Sword in the Moon doesn't make up for or justify it, either. "r u a jerk?"

[–] melon_wawa 16 years ago

I have to agree with you. How odd it is to reply to your message 5 years later, but I only just saw it yesterday in Australia. It was on one of the foreign channels late at night - pity, really, because I had to go to sleep halfway through!

I thought it was excellent. A masterpiece - and I'm sad I did not know about it earlier.

[–] MrSnuffles 16 years ago

Yeah, I thought of Braveheart when I saw it too.
Very good, definatly worth a view.

"Marco?" "Polo, Mr Matthews. Polo."

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] jnagarya-1 15 years ago

It isn't five men, and it isn't hundreds of Mongols.

And they don't successfully hold the fort, until after most are killed -- along with the Mongol general. The latter could have been killed several times before then, which would likely have taken the steam out of the Mongol forces, but that didn't happen.

Otherwise, though I'm not a war movie or violence "fan," it is powerful. And Zhang Ziyi proves her chops as an actress. An interesting role having a princess grow, mature, and come down to earth.

[–] 15 years ago

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