A sweeping, epic tale of a martial arts warrior who attempts to defy a kingdom to be with his love.
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Title: Bichunmoo (2000)
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| Credited cast: | |||
| Hyeon-jun Shin | ... | Yu Jinha | |
| Kim Hee-seon | ... | Sullie | |
| Jin-young Jung | ... | Namgung Junkwang (as Jin-yeong Jeong) | |
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Dong-jik Jang | ... | Lai |
| Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
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Yu-jeong Choi | ... | Lady Yeojin (as Jin-hie Choi) |
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Ju-bong Gi | ... | Kwakjung |
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Bang Hyep | ... | Namgung Sung |
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Hak-Cheol Kim | ... | General Taruga |
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Ju-yeon Kim | ||
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Soo-Ro Kim | ... | Ashin (as Su-ro Kim) |
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Han-garl Lee | ... | Changryeon |
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Hyeon-kyeong Ryu | ... | Arisu |
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Tae-hwa Seo | ... | Saijune |
It is 14th century Yuan Dynasty China, the country is under Mongolian rule and the star-crossed lovers, Jinha and Sullie, illegitimate daughter of a Mongolian commander, are caught in the middle. When her mother died, SullieÕs father, Taruga, took her away and later planned to marry her off to form an alliance with a powerful Chinese warlord. Things get worse when Jinha learns that Taruga was the person who ordered the massacre of his entire family. Fuelled by hatred, he masters his family secret martial arts, the Bichun Secret Art. Many top pugilists, who are also after the secret scroll, try to kill him. During one of such attempts, Junkwang, a rich and powerful son of a Han lord, helps Jinha. But fate has it that Junkwang is the person that Sullie is forced to marry. When Junkwang knows about their love, he plots to have Jinha killed. Written by <sukmolelono@yahoo.com>
This was the first Korean movie I have ever seen & it really inspired me to watch some other new Korean films. I have to warn you, I'm unsure of what might be spoiling this movie for you, so if you haven't seen it and don't wish to be spoiled, don't read this.
First a few words on the action: good, good & good. Very well done fight sequences, though at some point the ..exploding bodies were a bit too much to take. It was just quite disturbing. The secret art of Bichunmoo was something that glued me into the plot immediately; I've always liked all kinds of mysterious martial arts & Bichunmoo was very interesting.
Like someone said earlier, Bichunmoo moves incredibly fast, not allowing the viewer to really understand what they've just seen. The pace is so fast you really need to watch it over & over again, until you finally manage to put all the pieces of this puzzle together. At some point, me & my friend who were watching it, just completely lost track. The only thing we understood after watching it the first time, were the main points of the plot and the love story.
My advice: Watch it as many times as you need to. I think they had cut out a scene where Jinha becomes Jahalang [goes under a false identity] and that really confused me a lot. After the second time of viewing it, I managed to figure it all out. The plot is rather typical, but it's not completely uninteresting, so the movie is worth watching not only for its action. I like how fate brings the two lovers together, in the end. It is quite sad, though.
The leading lady is amazingly beautiful, but it seems all her character has to do is contemplate on the pain inside of her of losing her beloved & cry on a few occations. So, based on this, I see why she could've been critisized for her acting in this movie in Korea. The main actor has, like many have noticed, a weird nose and a even more weird mustache, but his character seems to have a little more depth than Sullie, the leading lady. I'm no expert in acting, but I think some of the characters definitely lacked of depth and therefore their actors didn't really have a chance to show much talent..
One thing that bothered me was that since I don't speak Korean very well [read: at all!], there were a few lines that had no subtitles.
Overall, this film was good, if you like these type of action/epic films. Overall I'd give it 7/10, because it had some potential it just clearly, unfortunately, lost. I don't know about the comparisons with Croaching.. because I have completely forgotten if I liked that movie or not.