A long time ago, as Seol-rang, she was one of three rebel group leaders. After Hong-ee’s talents become public knowledge, Wallso reveals the motive for the training. Hong-ee (Kim), also known as Seoi-hee, is a young martial arts prodigy, trained since birth by her blind foster mother, Seol-rang (Jeon), a.k.a Wallso. While it still looks awesome, unless you have a detailed synopsis printed out in advance, you’re going to be reduced to going “Ooh!” and “Eh?” in roughly equal proportions.Īs best as I can tell, the story is this. The remainder of the two hours consists of semi-random scenes, half in flashback, featuring characters who apparently change names at random. But then, it’s as if the makers completely forgot about the story-line. The first 30 minutes of this are truly splendid: it’s got wonderful visuals, along the lines of Hero or House of Flying Daggers. " Memories of the Sword" is directed by Park Heung-sik and features Lee Byung-hun, Jeon Do-yeon, Kim Go-eun and Lee Junho.“Looks lovely, yet literally loses the plot.” Though the base outline of the plot is just a fairy tale metaphor for growing up, there's also a lot of weighty material about death and politics and freedom tossed in there and I was just, geez, why does this story have to be so complicated? After a certain point excessive explanation just calls to attention a lack of confidence in the universal nature of the story's underlying themes. The movie is just plain exhausting, and can't even spare a moment for comic relief. Of course none of these archetypes are all that deep, and " Memories of the Sword" suffers from its two hour runtime as much as anything else. Hong-i the impulsive, Wol-so the calculating, and Yoo-baek the painstakingly defensive. The choreography is so exquisitely orchestrated that we really learn more about the characters from their martial arts moves than their role in the actual story. Every minor taunt or feint takes on larger than life dimensions. Director Park Heung-sik combines vibrant colors with unimpeachably well-flowing action. The real shame of all this is that " Memories of the Sword" looks absolutely gorgeous. Yoo-baek in particular suffers from this, because the man's so consistently reluctantly evil he never ends up feeling like much of a threat. " Memories of the Sword" could have gotten a lot more dramatic tension by making the backstory deliberately ambiguous, which in turn would have opened Wol-so and Yoo-baek's actions up to multiple interpretations. What makes this screenwriting decision especially frustrating is that Hong-i has no way of knowing what actually happened between Wol-so and Yoo-baek back in the day. It's just, we really do spend that much time stuck in flashback mode with Wol-so and Yoo-baek. Which is especially weird, because Yool definitely does a lot more than Yoo-baek in the present day. His role is among the more potentially interesting as Hong-i's similarly aged opposite sex rival with a position of some importance in Yoo-baek's sinister organization. Yool (played by Lee Junho) is similarly shafted. Indeed, Wol-so and Yoo-baek effectively kill Hong-i's sense of agency too, as the young woman increasingly comes off as a puppet intended to settle old scores rather than a character in her own right. But on the creative end, the disproportionate emphasis on Wol-so and Yoo-baek completely kills the momentum of Hong-i's character growth. After all, if you hire Jeon Do-yeon and Lee Byung-hun to be in your movie, it's a bit of a waste to just shove them off into supporting roles. On the business end I can sympathize with this creative decision. But before we get to know Hong-i too well, her mother Wol-so (played by Jeon Do-yeon) and archenemy Yoo-baek (played by Lee Byung-hun) take over the movie, with Hong-i only making fleeting appearances. Hong-i is so jazzed about being able to achieve an obviously impossible acrobatic feat over a sunflower that she celebrates by running off into town and impulsively entering a martial arts tournament. Hong-i (played by Kim Go-eun) is a talented young martial artist living in the Goryeo era.
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