The Age of Shadows

Mil Jeong (밀정 ~ The Age of Shadows).

Viewed at 2016 Venice FilmFestival. Tremendous Korean epochal drama about life and resistance under the oppressive Japanese occupation in the early decades of the century. Director Kim Jaewoon really knows how to set up drama and suspense mixed with blazing action. There was so much in this film that I felt like I was watching a Beethoven symphony. Dark Sepia toned photography used to good effect enhances period feel. Musical soundtrack employs jazz and adrenaline tensor stretches and the final shootout in the train station is orchestrated deftly to Ravel's Bolero.

139' running time is long and winds up with several anticlimactic codas but never lets you out if its grip. For Koreans this is clearly a film with heavy patriotic messages. The final theme is "Don't let your failures stop you -- build on them and rise to the next level" -- until victory is achieved. I would love to see this film with a Korean audience and would expect to see people on their feet cheering at the end... A young Italian I met afterwards said he loved it even though he knows nothing of the history involved. I could easily see why -- in a way this is something like a Kimchee spaghetti western and charismatic actor Kang-ho Song, 49, has got to be the Korean equivalent of John Wayne, or at least, Robert Mitchum.