MovieChat Forums > Yeonpyeong haejeon (2015) Discussion > Terrible film

Terrible film

posted 9 years ago by parknourie
8 replies | jump to latest

Yet another box office hit in Korea is a terrible film.

When will they regain the glory days of 2001-2011 (although there was a period where garbage "comedy" films were highly popular) where films were actually good and original?

This is a film that is filled with tired old cliche and the only reason why it is succeeding is because it tells a true story of YeonPyeong Haejeon that happened back in 2002.

While most of us had fond memories of having FIFA worldcup happen in our own country, the young soldiers fought against the sudden attack from North Korean marines.
Cue relentless one dimensional characters played by terrible actors, cheesy dialogue, unbearable patriotism just forced down our throats.
It almost plays like a Navy promotion clip stretched into 130 minutes.

As a movie this fails.
However it is a huge hit in Korea and while that is due to the distributor monopolizing the number of cinemas it will play in (that is a serious problem in Korea. Most KOREAN films that's huge hit is mainly because the cinema isn't playing anything other than that specific film. Hence why Gaurdians of the Galaxy flopped hard), it is still a sign that people actually want to see a film like this.
And you know, Koreans are suckers for patriotism.
If the movie's main message is something along the lines of: "Japan is bad! North Koreans are bad! South Koreans are good! Praise the armies!" it will succeed more or less.
More disgusting is the fact that there ARE people who claim the ones who criticize this film is a Communist. Yeah, we've become that low.

It is a great story.
The true story of this event deserves to be told.
But did we need all the boring, terrible actors playing characters that defines cliche?
What Koreans should have really done is they should have went online, find the true story in the news, read it and clap their hands.
That'd have saved them time, money and having to endure festival of brain-washing cliches.

To Korean film industry:
I want to like your films. But now the films are stupid, unoriginal and obviously made to drain the audiences' pockets.

It is hilarious how the Korean Film Industry is whining on the newspapers how the audiences are ignoring their films and only preferring Hollywood movies.
Yeah. Right.

[–] a-movie-fan 9 years ago

I have just finished watching this movie and thought the execution was exceptional. I liked that you got to know each person both on and off the ship. I also found it very emotional, having a daughter in the Navy myself. I cannot (nor do I ever), begin to imagine the pain the surviving Sailors and the families of the deceased felt. It was a senseless act of 'power' that proved nothing in the end but a waste of lives for both the deceased and the survivors.

In-fact, tonight I saw two Korean movies and thought they were both brilliant. They are definitely a refreshing step-up from 95% of the recycled Englsih garbage put on our screens these days!

So far this week, I've seen 7 movies. I wasted my money on 5 of them and 2 instilled why I've dedicated so much of my life to movies.

Northern Limit Line - 9
The Whistle Blower - 8
Aloha - 2
The Intern - 5
American Heist - 4
Robocop 2014 - 3
Sabotage - 4

As Quentin Tarantino stated in an interview . . .
'It doesn't matter if one loves it and one hates it because that is what creates a dialogue.' That's what movies are all about!

Check Out MY IMDb Lists . . .

~ Nearly Perfect or Not? ~ 9/10 ~ http://tinyurl.com/amoviefan-imdb-9s

~ Perfect or Not? ~ 10/10 ~ http://tinyurl.com/amoviefan-imdb-10s

~ Films Watched... ~ 6,270+ ~ http://tinyurl.com/amoviefan-imdb-watched

~ ~ ALL Movies Listed ... have been watched in their ENTIRETY ~ ~

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ebonyknight 8 years ago

Say what you will, I thought it was well done.

This film did something that has NEVER happened to me before. When the deaf mother grabbed the paddles begging the doctor to continue and she grabbed the bag and start breathing, I actually lost it and cried.

Something about that really tore into me. That by itself made it a very powerful film for me.

As a whole I love the Korean films. They take the time to introduce characters and get you to care about them. I think their films get short changed in light of Hollywood.

Only 3 other films have gotten me close to tears and two of them were Korean.

I think the battle was well done. It shows something that Hollywood usually gets wrong. Its actually relatively hard to kill people. With all the blood and parts laying around you would think they were all killed, but only a handful on either side. When small arms are involved, that is typically the result. More realistic in my opinion. There are usually two to three times the number of wounded vs killed in a battle and this movie portrayed that pretty well.

They also made it feel like the battle lasted for hours when it really didn't. The immersion was well done, as far as I am concerned. Don't really get the mildly low score.

"the world's smartest man poses no more threat to me than does its smartest termite." -Dr. Manhattan

[–] Coolestmovies 8 years ago

If the deaf mother grabbing the paddles had you in tears, you cannot watch very much Korean cinema or television at all. That scene, more than any in this film, is the absolute nadir of overblown Korean melodrama. Granted, the culture has a strong collective tendency to want to see that in their films, but in recent years, even many Koreans have grown sick of it, especially younger generations, even as they've come to expected it in nearly every filmed entertainment the country produces (even the comedies!).

Obviously, as you can see by the real funeral footage at the end of the film, Korean mothers -- especially if they're susceptible to religion, which far too many of a certain generation are (including many of those who would've born the children ultimately killed in this sea battle) -- are frequently the victims (in a victim culture) of a uniquely Korean kind of mourning, which goes so far beyond the usual crying and hugging as to be almost embarrassing as they flail around on coffins, on the floor, throwing things, wailing at the top of their lungs, and generally making a big spectacle of how much more 'in grief' they are than anyone else in the room.

Sure, their pain is real, but so is their conscientiousness of their own behaviour, and since they've been conditioned over generations to react this way, younger generations are increasingly more reserved because they know such showmanship is not necessary (yet would never interfere in this deeply personal way of grieving).

The scene with the mom and the paddles is absolutely in line with this learned behaviour, and as usual the emotion is amplified beyond what anyone would do in real life, but to anyone -- Korean or non -- who has steadfastly watched K-cinema since at least the renaissance of the early 00's, and even earlier, you'd know that this kind of scene is so cliche, so manipulative and calculated and thoroughly predictable and commonplace (and so predictably overacted, to boot) that it LOSES its impact for just as many viewers as it makes cry, and may even take some people out of the picture completely because of its lack of subtlety.

In the end, though, personal impressions from a single scene in a mildly above average movie mean little. Plenty of people would be moved by that scene, but just as many, if not more, would roll their eyes at it.

Koreans SPECIALIZE in this kind of overt, hammy melodrama and it clearly strikes a chord with many people, even if -- outside of the wailing mother routine -- Koreans themselves are generally MUCH more reserved and conservative with their emotions in real life, no more or less strained than most westerners for that matter. It's a fascinating dichotomy, frankly, almost as though their literature and filmed entertainments portray their emotions the way they WISH they could really be.

[–] shoobe01-1 8 years ago

Agree with all the other responses. Well done film, paced properly without undue fake tension or some opening action just because the movie demands it. Characters didn't seem too cliched to me, and we got over an hour to get used to them, during which time it was perfectly adequately entertaining.

I presume, since not all credits are really readable to me, that the ROKN supported this very, very fully and it really helped. Good stuff on the boats, unprecedented naval action scenes, etc. That really helped, having everything from the team room to the briefing room to the battle be that absolutely accurate.

Okay, the Norks were pretty cartoonish sometimes. Their dirty boat was pretty weak and not accurate to the type/shape of boat.

[–] WhoisThePrisoner1 8 years ago

Your review is spot on. The movie is HORRIBLE in every single way.

[–] Coolestmovies 8 years ago

Nearly all of the OP's comments regarding this film are spot on, EXCEPT the part about the movie being terrible. It's not terrible, but it IS thoroughly average and wholly predictable, and the IMDB rating, based on as few clicks as it is, is properly reflective of that. Everything about the film -- especially its entire first hour -- is middling "disaster film 101" filmmaking that Americans have specialized in, and refined much more effectively to the point that you don't need to spend TWO-THIRDS of the movie waiting for the big disaster or battle anymore. They get there BEFORE the mid-point and can then spend more time showing the logistics of the fight, the rescues, what have you.

Mind you, this film's troubled, years-long production history and relatively modest budget probably ensured that the only way the story could be told was by padding the hoariest of cliches to near the breaking point and eliding anything that touched on real depth of character or situation (and assuming the predominantly Korean audience would take politics and history for granted and bring their own thoughts to the table instead of needing it spelled out). Besides, the actual battle only took about half an hour, so anyone tackling a film about it -- and not being able to present the North Korean side of the equation in anything other than a strange montage, as they did here -- had but one option: front-load the story with "cutesy" vanilla scenes showing what doe-eyed angels virtually everyone on the boat really was, and their near-perfect relationships with their families and friends. It was all a bit much, really.

Still, not a terrible film, but a fairly average one, and loaded, as the OP essentially says, with many of the ticks and tendencies that have been hobbling Korean films in recent years now that the novelty and global interest has settled down. And it's true they wonder why Hollywood is taking such a big chunk of their pie even with the quota system they put in place to prevent it during the renaissance period of the early to mid-00's. It's tough to fight Hollywood, really, when you're a largely homogenous culture essentially stuck on a peninsula with only an ingrained taste for melodrama and a long-standing political divide as the predominant ingredients in your cinema. Much as I love Korean movies, I do wonder when filmmakers there will start to break with tradition, or if it's even possible. Some have tried, but it rarely spells box-office success (anyone remember their brief flirtations with sci-fi about a decade ago, with films like Natural City, R U Ready, Yesterday, etc.?).

[–] thingmakersback (1183) 8 months ago

Struck me as an above average film. Now, if you want to know what I would call average - Greyhound (2020) was average.

This one may have strong elements of melodrama, but they all feel earned and some things are cliches because they work and cannot be replaced with something novel just to avoid the familiar.