Yahoo! Movies Rating : B+
This was the movie that pulls my interest towards the Korean movie industry. Only now that i know that it was a really big budget movie that took 5 years to make.
This movie is about a failed Korean political envoy who were force to disarmed and captured for they were mistaken as spies by the Chinese. They were outcast into the desert escorted by the Chinese soldiers who were then massacred by the Mongols. Since the Mongol feud were only with the Chinese, the Koreans were let live to fetch for their own fate in the desert. In their struggle to get back to their country, the Koreans again stumbled upon the Mongols at a desert market only to notice that the Mongols have captured a Chinese princess. The plot then thickens when the envoy's escort general decide to rescue the princess in a last hope to redeem their failure and reconstitute their ties with the Chinese.
Do look for the honorable characteristics shown by enemies respecting each other in the movie as I believe, like any other epic movie tries to project, in hope that we, in real life, would still show respects to our foes regardless of whatever differences we have towards each other. In my understanding, it's a warrior's duty to kill enemies but its mankind birth requirement to respect others and be respected.
This is the first Asian movies that I see people of different races speaks their mother tongue (in the earlier days, for example, everybody would speak English if it was an American movie or everybody would speak Cantonese if it were a Hong Kong movie). I notice that at least three language were spoken in this movie namely, Korean, Mandarin and Hindi. this really interest me, it makes the presentation more believable.
The characters in the movie were presented nicely, each one of them brings their act together which in my opinion made the movie great. in other words, all the main character and the supporting cast were alive and well developed. Though the hero does not talk much but he did a lot of memorable action fitting the actions of a former slave with a bit of a warrior background.
Zhang Ziyi carried the princess character into such realism, a cocky and spoilt little princess who had never have a rough live but now have to endure the difficulty of someone who is hunted and on the run. If China are still ruled by emperors, she would be an epiphany of how a Chinese princess would be, complete with the looks and the attitude. Well, my guess is her wedding would be an 88 days event covered by all the news channel in the world. *sigh* such beauty. :P
It may be hard to get the DVD for this movies in some countries but in worst case, try to downloads any torrents file available on the web (not that I condone such act as I believe, if we like something, support it, buy original so that the person involved in such great movies are properly compensated which in turns would encourage them to make better movies).
The main cast were Jung Woo-sung, Ahn Sung-ki, Ju Jin-mo and Zhang Ziyi.
Enjoy the movie guys and gals as believe me, I do.
Check out more info about the movie at wikipedia.
