Product Description

It is AD 924, at the end of the United Shilla Dynasty. Continuous riots sweep the land ruled by a corrupted government. Evil forces are rampant and malicious demons roam the land. YI Kwak, born with the powers to see spirits, joins the royal demon hunting squad, Chuh-yong-dae after losing his fiancee, Yon-hwa to evil demons. YI Kwak excels as the most talented warrior of Chuh-yong-dae and the royal squad seems to gain momentum as powerful fighters against the forces of darkness. Then one day, YI Kwak drifts into Joongcheon, the world of the dead through a strange shrine. Joongcheon, the intermediate world between Heaven and Earth, a place souls remain for 49 days, preparing for reincarnation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #90795 in DVD
• Published on: 2007
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: DVD Region, NTSC, Widescreen, Subtitled, Color
• Subtitled in: English, Korean, Chinese
• Running time: 102 minutes

Features

• 1 disc pack (region 0 NTSC)

Customer Reviews

One of the greatest fight scenes ever done
The last Battle of this spiritually powerful Martial EPIC has the hero taking on a literal army of dark spirit-demons to reach the one he loves. The emotion of this film in the manner that the characters interact MAKES THE MOVIE outstanding. That awesome last battle makes you believe one man alone can stand for something higher against staggering odds....and prevail. The Restless is, hands down for plot, martial skill and special effects one of the greatest Action films of all time.

Mehhhhh...
Warning: Spoiler Alert!!!

The story...

This is just a general collective that I gathered from watching this movie. There wasn't a lot of really descriptive dialogue, so if I have one or two (or ten) things off key...blame the lack of explanation.

As far as Fantasy films go, I thought that there was a good general idea behind this one; a lone demon slayer named Yi Gwak finds himself in "midheaven", a spirit world of sorts, where he's caught in a conflict between "evil spirits" and "reapers".

The evil spirits are a troupe of demon slayers whom Yi Gwak was formerly associated with in the human world. And the reapers, I would describe as "Valkyries" of sorts who bring human spirits into midheaven.

The strange coincidence about the conflict is that the evil spirits were Yi Gwak's friends and allies before their deaths in the human world. They're lead by Master Ban-Chu, who Yi Gwak formerly held in high respects.
The reapers on the other hand, (also known as "Chuneen"), are lead by a spirit with the appearance of Yi Gwak's former wife, Yon-Hwa, who, upon becoming a reaper, has lost all of her worldly agonies and memories.

So it's kind of a moral struggle or so to speak. Should Yi Gwak align with his brotherly band of demon slayers, or the amnesiac spirit of his wife?

A few bad notes...
The lame-factor ensues here when Yi Gwak discovers that his friends have all turned evil for a seemingly unknown reason. I'm given the impression that they mindlessly follow the orders of their master, Ban-Chu, with no questions asked.

Yon-Hwa, who goes by the title So-Hwa (now that she's a Chuneen), is basically the victim of the conflict. So-Hwa's master asks her to carry a special stone that has the power to open a portal between the spirit world and the human world, and So-Hwa herself states that she's only a pupil, and that she's unfit to carry out such a task. Lo and behold, she really is unfit!

Throughout the entire movie, So-Hwa is being rescued by Yi-Gwak! Somehow I was lead to believe that the Chuneen were not an easy opponent, but apparently...they suck at everything they do!
It's their job to keep midheaven safe, and at the start of the movie, we see them failing to do so when midheaven is overrun by demons! So-Hwa, who's the absolute wrong person for the task of carrying such an important relic, is nearly taken out during every single fight scene in the movie! Fortunately enough, Yi-Gwak is always there to rescue her. Cliché cliché!

A few more nit-picks...
Bad Chemistry...
My biggest complaint is that we're lead to believe that Yi-Gwak and So-Hwa are supposed to have some kind of romantic relationship together...it's blatantly obvious that they're supposed to fall in love, despite the fact that So-Hwa has no memories of him...
Unfortunately, as another viewer mentioned, the actor and actress who play Yi-Gwak and So-Hwa had absolutely NO chemistry together.

Bad Costumes...
This is usually the last thing that I look at when I'm watching flicks such as this...But for some reason, the costumes all seemed really out of place, even for a fantasy movie. Yi-Gwak was the only character who accurately dressed the part of an untidy demon slayer. Yon-Swa on the other hand was dressed in what looked like...some kind of wedding dress. One of the evil spirits from Yi-Gwak's former demon-slaying troupe wore almost the exact same dress in a different color. And if I didn't have a high def t.v., I would have thought that the bad guy who was wearing a silver mail was actually wearing sequins.

My last beef with this movie is that it was really hard to watch without raising my eyebrows every time So-Hwa snarled her lip. Yes...throughout the entire movie, she was crossing her eyes, and snarling her lip.

Visually beautiful + Some substances in the plot but overall it's not good..
The copy I bought was titled "Joongcheon" with English subtitle. It's visually beautiful. It also has some substances in the plot but overall it's not a good movie. It's because relationship between the 2 main characters are not touching at all. The fighting scenes are not good as in other Korean-made movies such as "Shadowless Sword" or "Warrior".

It's worth watching once.