|
楼主 |
发表于 2004-3-18 22:30
|
显示全部楼层
Subject: "Whang San Beol - Funny yet made me almost cry" Previous topic | Next topic
halmo20 Wed Mar-17-04 03:02 PM
Member since Mar 17th 2004
1 posts
#8252, "Whang San Beol - Funny yet made me almost cry"
Watching this movie was somewhat painful. I've always considered the time period in the movie as one of the most important deciding moments of Korean history. The struggle between Shilla and Baek Chae still poison Korean society to this date, as we can see from the impeachment of Korean president. It was interesting to see how current socieal problems were juxtaposed along with those of many many centuries ago.
Thumbs up for the producers of the movie for taking up a subject like this. I've always wanted to see a Korean historic movie that dealt with non-Chosun period, which I consider as the dark ages for Korea..
As Park Joong Hoon was killed towards the end of the movie, I could not help think about Kwang-Joo city in 1980..
Also, my sympathy to the translator of this movie..
A real shame that the Korean language (and intended feelings conveyed through heavy use of dialect) used in the movie might be somewhat prohibiting for foreign viewers interested in more than just laughs this movie holds(even with subtitles of best effort.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HonHIGuy Wed Mar-17-04 03:27 PM
Member since Apr 19th 2003
78 posts
#8253, "RE: Whang San Beol - Funny yet made me almost cry"
In response to Reply # 0
I also really liked this film. Here's my review of it...
This movie takes a very important part of Korean history and portrays it in a very humorous manner. In the 600's, Korea was made up of 3 kingdoms, Baekchae, Shilla, and Goguryo. Shilla became allies with the Tang (Chinese) and in order to solidify their alliance, was ordered to deliver tons of rice to the Tang. The only problem is that in order to do so, they must go through Baekchae territory. Shilla outnumber Baekchae forces 10 to 1, but they find that they are much more resilient than they anticipated.
Park Joong Hoon (Nowhere to Hide, Two Cops) stars as Gye Baek, the Baekchae general. He is willing to sacrifice the lives of his own family in order to go to war at his king's orders. Jeong Jin Yeong (Guns and Talks, Wildcard) stars as Kim Yu Sin, the Shilla general who is wary of Shilla's alliance with the Tang and will not make a move on Baechae until he can figure out what the hell their plan is. These two actors are two of Korea's most versatile, and they, along with the witty script, really bring this film to life.
But the star of the film is indeed the writing. It takes on a humorous point of view of an important battle in Korean history. A lot of the humor stems from the fact that the 2 kingdoms, Shilla and Baekchae speak in different dialects, so there are different inflections, slang, and vocabulary. This may seem like it would be impossible to translate into English, and some of it is, but the subtitler has to be given a lot of credit for their work. The subtitler inserted their own jokes in times where the dialogue was not able to be translated directly, and made the film enjoyable for even non-Korean speakers. In addition, a lot of the humor is physical, so the laughs are aplenty. The funniest scenes come from the "feeling out" battles before the main battle which feature a cussing out war, a dirty gesture war, and a game of chess involving real soldiers!
There is also a hilarious cameo by big stars Kim Seung Woo (TV's Rosemary and Hotelier) and Shin Hyun Joon (Guns and Talks, and TV's Stairway to Heaven).
The battle scene is not that great, nor graphic, but then again, this is not an epic type film like Musa. Essentially, it is a comedy and in that sense, it is very successful. I found Hwangsanbeol to be one of the funniest Korean films I've seen yet.
As with a lot of Korean DVDs, the packaging alone is worth the cost. It comes in a fold up two disc case, and there are tons of extra features. They include making of and behind the scenes commentaries, interviews with cast and crew, the historical story of the battle at Hwangsanbeol, clips of the actors practicing their dialects, and trailers and a music video. Unfortunately, the bonus features disc is not subtitled.
The DVD is Region 3, so an all region player will be necessary to play it.
Hwangsanbeol is a very funny film and is highly recommended. I'd give it an 8 out of 10.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
nkw88 Thu Mar-18-04 05:28 AM
Member since Jan 26th 2002
186 posts
#8265, "RE: some intelligent comments(maybe spoiler)"
In response to Reply # 1
Some Koreans are worried about translation of dialects in this film.
I am not interested in translation but in whether it works or not
that characters give very intelligent comments about history and human
life.
The most brilliant figure in this film is JEONG Jin-Young rather than
PARK Joong-Hoon. JEONG was the attorney in Guns and Talks.
Here are some examples of intelligence in writing.
"Only crazy men can do war. Crazy enough to kill his family....
War is a Crazy thing."
"After death, tiger left its fur, man one's name, or fame."
"Fur kills tiger, name does man."
fm:koreanfilm.org
[ Last edited by 阿韩 on 2004-3-18 at 10:33 PM ] |
|