Muyeong geom (2005)

Director:

Young-jun Kim

Writer:

Paul Sheen (writer)

Release Date:

18 November 2005 (South Korea)

Genre:

Action

Tagline:

The killer blades versus the killer babe!

Plot:

In ancient Korea, the prince of Beahae has been assassinated and the kingdom is in turmoil. The only hope lies with so-ha...

Plot Keywords:

Martial Arts

Cast

Hyeon-jun Shin	...	Gun Hwa-pyung
So-yi Yoon	...	Yeon So-ha
Seo-jin Lee	...	Dae Jung-hyun
Ki-yong Lee	...	Mae Yung-ok
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ji-Woo Choi
Ho-bin Jeong
Jun-ha Jeong
Su-ro Kim

Also Known As:

Shadowless Sword (International: English title) (South Korea) (USA)
Superfighters (Philippines: English title)
The Legend of the Shadowless Sword (USA) (DVD title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence.

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

South Korea | USA

Language:

Korean

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

South Korea:12 | USA:R | Australia:M | Argentina:13 | Philippines:R-13 (MTRCB) | Singapore:NC-16 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

South Korea

Company:

New Line Cinema

Quotes:

Yeon So-ha: You're going to be king. There shouldn't be any kind of scandalous rumors.
Dae Jung-hyun: Are we in Balhae? Who's going to see?
Yeon So-ha: Whether anyone is watching or not isn't important. Under the heavens, the king should have nothing to hide.

Very entertaining and visually excellent

Now I'll start off by saying that there is no reason to compare this movie to the Asian blockbusters such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Hero etc. It doesn't matter if you've seen them or not because I think this movie has it's own atmosphere and feel to it. I guess it's because this film is Korean. There is a distinct difference between Korean and other Asian action movies. They have their own style of making these fantastic action/epic/drama movies. Another great Korean movie in the same veins is Musa The Warrior, so if you've seen it you have some idea what to expect. Some other comment stated that there are some weird comedic features in the fight scenes, but I wouldn't point that out in the review. It was only one short scene and that's all she wrote. On the contrary I found this movie to be quite serious in the whole. Though everyone would say there wasn't much of a plot I answer; There is an adequate plot to carry this movie without a problem, it is after all made for entertaining purposes, not for the Oscar nomination.

Now more about the movie. The fighting is mostly sword-fighting. There are a few more exotic arms with some of the fighters too like bows or poles. The fights were made watcher friendly in a way that you can actually see what is happening in the fights all the time. So it's not just a clinging sound and a million swordstrikes per second where you can't tell which sword belongs to who. So you can see every small detail in the fights which is in my opinion definitely a good thing. And yes, there is a lot of flying in the movie, but used much more tastefully than for example in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The fight choreography in general was amazing. Saw many moves that I hadn't seen before in similar films. The actors were good, especially the leading actress was very convincing. When I watched this film, I had been bored out of my mind all day and was about to fall to sleep. NOT after the movie started rolling. I was glued to my seat from start to end. Summary: Good action and choreography, good acting and very, very entertaining.