At some point during the embattled Joseon dynasty in early 16th-century Korea, someone wrote an off-hand comment in the official record of reports of a monster near the capital. And you know what that means: a thoroughly silly horror movie BASED ON HISTORICAL EVENTS, baby!
And so it went that the faction that brought King Jungjong (Park Hee-soon) to power is now conspiring to take him down. So when his ministers bring him news of a monster spreading plague and eating peasants on the borders of his kingdom, the king rejects their plans to deal with it - afraid they're plotting to overthrow him - and calls on an old ally instead to lead the investigation: an old general that resigned in disgust at the court's amoral maneuvering.
The general, Yum Kium (Kim Myung-min), is living the peasant life in the impoverished countryside, along with another general who followed him into exile (Kim In-kwon) and an adopted daughter (Lee Hye-ri). They quickly accept the king's request and start investigating the alleged monster's depredations which, strangely, come in two separate flavours: People brutally torn apart, and people being half-mauled to death, infected with a strange plague.
What follows is, depending on how you approach it, either an extremely ridiculous horror movie or a fairly ridiculous action/adventure yarn as our trio, accompanied by a court officer (Choi Woo-shik) face off against court intrigue and/or a monster that may or may not exist.
Before we engage in spoilers, I'll just say that the movie is a fair amount of fun - despite a couple of scenes set at the sites of grisly mass murders, it ends up being a silly, humorous adventure that gets a bit too preposterous for its own good. There are a lot of tonal shifts but while a ton of innocent people get slaughtered, hey, don't worry, our protagonists mostly make it through and there's time for a few fart jokes. In that sense it's definitely closer to the Detective Dee movies than, say, Brotherhood of the Wolf.
In any case, SPOILERS: Yes, there is a dastardly court scheme of the extremely moustache-twirling (or wispy beard stroking, in this case) kind to overthrow the king, and yes, there is a monster who's doing its own thing in parallel, and events conspire so that they both strike at once. The monster boasts an excellent design - it looks a little bit like a giant foo dog afflicted by a nasty plague, one that's at once distinctive, menacing and a little cute. It's unfortunate that the surprising (given the budget) amount of time it's on-screen, coupled with an all-CGI execution, end up wearing out its welcome.
The action itself is just ok. Director Jong-ho Huh shoots his fights with quick edits that rob the choreography of any impact, and the most involved battle is shot with a sort of pulsing zoom effect that looks kind of cool but makes the action pretty illegible. The run-ins with the monster fare a little better, but for good or ill (mostly ill) it's the sort of CGI-heavy spectacle we've seen many times by now, and nowhere near as good as on The Host.
The script (by the director along with Heo Dam) gets more and more overstuffed as it goes along, culminating with a series of finales of increasing absurdity. But it does keep things moving apace, and the comedy, while not all that funny, keeps things light even when people are dying all over the place.
I realize I'm maybe coming off here as a bit more negative than intended. It's a decent, fairly original creature feature that does a good job of mixing in some action and intrigue elements before going a bit brain-dead. I enjoyed it, but it's definitely one of those where you need to adjust your expectations as it goes on.
No comments:
Post a Comment