Daeripgun (2017) Reviews

• excellent war movie

  elale-573-9713002017-06-18

  This has some really great fighting in it. It's not martial arts, though, it's war. Sword versus sword, arrow versus cover, siege ladder versus wall, and, when the Japanese Army arrives, suddenly, in the midst of this medieval style warfare, guns. The war scenes are stunning. The main groups of characters are: the king and his advisers, the prince and his courtiers and regular soldiers, the Japanese invaders, and the proxy soldiers. Proxy soldiers are professional soldiers who make their living by doing other peoples' mandatory military service for them. Of course the people who pay are the rich and the ones who get paid are the poor, so the proxy soldiers have a lower status than regular soldiers. Some of them have a goal of becoming regular soldiers after their proxy terms, and the access to that career path is something officials manipulate them with. This movie is subtitled in English, and when the Japanese characters are talking, also subtitled in Hangul. There are a ton of cultural details in this film that I would not have understood if my companion had not been whispering explanations to me. (We were 6 rows away from the nearest other people in the theater, so it wasn't disruptive.) For example, there was a point in the story where volunteer soldiers start to arrive to fight for the Prince. Some of them were wearing what looked like swastikas on their shirts. My companion explained those were monks who were like Shaolin monks but the local Korean variety. (The name sounded like Sherenji but I have no idea how to spell it.) This is apparently based on a true story, which accounts for how confusingly byzantine the plot was. The reason I gave this a 9 instead of a 10 is because there were a few times I didn't really understand what was going on, and also because at the beginning I wasn't sure who I was supposed to be rooting for. That cleared up eventually, though. We are rooting for Tow, the proxy soldier who becomes the martial arts mentor to the young Crown Prince. Until the moment Tow starts instructing him, the Prince is pretty useless. Eventually we start to root for the Prince, too, as he grows into a good man, warrior, and king. If you like movies about war, see it.

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• Excellent Shakespearan in scope

  jamesnadler2017-06-18

  Reminiscent of Kurosawa, Peckinpah and early Walter Hill, Warriors of the Dawn is very satisfying. Terrific action, lush cinematography and decent archetypal performances. While I did not grasp all the nuances of the Korean history (or the fictional version thereof)the two hours zipped by.

• Well I LIKED it..

  yvenkatsravan2018-05-22

  The Story as someone already commented i personally doesn't know much of Korean History but this particular short story line has a lot to tell us how the war used to be in those days.. The acting is Nearly PERFECT, dialogs are good (given the subtitles are accurate).. The story carried a certain emotion of the main character " Crown Prince" .. Just watch , its more of a War Drama than a action film..

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• Good enough

  pennyelenabooks2017-11-11

  With this film, they really tried to make it about history, but they ended up with a bit of a so so result. The theme was really nice, though the story started from the middle of the events and ended everything up with an epic ending, although it could have been better, with some more explanation on what happened next. The performances were good as well, but the whole thing seemed a little rashly made and everything just happened too quickly so there was not a smooth character build up here.

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