Awful bore


In this brand new Korean FLOP, Characters spend way too much time explaining everything they've done and will do but the story is still riddled with holes.

Plot: Three master swordsmen (and woman) attempts a coup but fails due to one of the three's betrayal.
Years later, the dead partner's surviving daughter vows revenge against the other two.
Sounds fun right?

Only Byung Hun Lee seems to have his character in control and other actors ar merely copying superior Chinese actors in this genre.
The plot wants Lee's character be the villain of the piece, but the actor's charisma and the story itself makes him look like the hero.
It's hard to root for the two female leads when they are well below their usual performance with characters who I assume are half-insane.

The "twist" which sets up the final action just reveals to us how nuts these two main characters are.
I was slapping myself in disbelief at the lengths the screenplay went.

If you are going to have characters fly, why can't you have fun with some aerial combat? Why is it always artsy shots that's cool to look at but ultimately makes no sense?
How does one simply teleport around locations just because plot wants them there?
It's all style but no content.

I expected Kill Bill set in ancient Korea (complete with snowy showdown), this is a serious disappointment.
Usually Korean audiences love terrible domestic films but this one flopped.
Perhaps it is due to bad publicity Byung Hun Lee is getting these days.
Or maybe the public finally got it right: this is a lame film.



Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down and a Wagging Finger of Shame

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I completely agree. The main actress did not do a good job at all. Her character didn't have a lot of redeeming qualities, such as getting her young friend killed by giving his name instead. She spends most of the movie getting hurt or crying, and its hard to root for her because she's so shallow.

The other thing I noticed is that when she has her two big action scenes (the contest and the tracking shot at the end), the movie has a quick cut editing style that I loathe. It made the opening fight scene terrible, and the tracking shot scene seemed off. I think she's not well skilled in actual swordplay, so they had to fake it in those two scenes.

Notice how they don't use that style when Byung-hun Lee is fighting that man in the rain, or the flowery dream fights with Do-yeon Jeon.

And that finale was terrible. The weird CGI jumping, and then the entire final scene in slow motion. There were some very terrible style choices, and they greatly affected the film.

I usually love all Korean movies since they are well made, but this one was a stinker.

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Lame copy pasta.

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