The Admiral: Roaring Currents

We don’t really get that many historical dramas based around naval warfare these days. We’ve had a plethora of movies and series in recent memory regarding just about every other kind of warfare, but naval warfare is something that’s been in a little bit of short supply lately, especially old school naval battles. It’s something I’ve always thought was interesting, naval warfare that is, particularly the antiquated kind with sails, anchors, cannons and muskets and the like. Sure, I’m probably just romanticising it from old-school pirate movies, but beyond those there really haven’t been many that focus on real-world battles. That’s the spark of that led me to watch The Admiral: Roaring Currents, a South Korean historical drama focused on naval warfare.

Roaring Currents is based on a real-life historical naval battle, The Battle of Myeongnyang in which Admiral Yi Sun-Shin defended Korean from a fleet of 330 Japanese ships using only 13 ships of his own. It’s a pretty astounding story, especially since its true – Sun-Shin used knowledge of the Korean seas and superior naval skills to defeat a much larger fleet, sinking some thirty Japanese warships and repelling the rest while losing none of his ships. Roaring Currents offers a dramatic version of these events, one with presumably more explosions than the real battle had, but just as many fabulous beards.

 

Set in the late 16^th century, Korea’s Joseon Kingdom has been under attack by invading Japanese forces for several years. While the Japanese ground forces advance, its naval forces are repelled by Admiral Yi Sun-Sin (Choi Min-sik), the brilliant Naval Commander of the Korean forces. Political infighting and the work of Japanese spies however causes the paranoid Joseon King to have Yi arrested and tortured, handing the navy over to a rival admiral. Yi’s replacement proved to be completely incompetent, resulting in a single disastrous naval battle in which almost the entire Korean Navy was wiped out, leaving the Japanese Navy free to advance.

Sun-Shin is quickly pardoned and reinstated as the head of the Korean Navy, despite still recovering from injuries and illness from his torture. He gathers together the remnants of the Korean navy, 13 ships and some frightened, demoralised soldiers, to make a final stand to prevent a fleet of over three hundred Japanese ships from landing on Korean soil. Hopelessly outnumbered, Sun-Shin utilises his knowledge of the surrounding waters and mastery of naval tactics to fight back and repel the massive attacking force.

The movie assumes some familiarity with real-life Korean history, very quickly throwing the audience right into it. The opening gives a very brief, abbreviated version of the set-up before thrusting you into the thick of it, meaning most characters have little introduction. There are a lot of side characters, many of whom look the same due to their armour, face-covering helmets or even facial hair (lots of beards here). I was lost for a while, and found it hard to keep track of everybody, and barring Sun-Shin and his Japanese opponent I had a hard time telling most of them apart. It doesn’t help that most of the side characters have very little in terms of characterisation or personality, or even screen time (or plot importance if we’re being honest), with many only having a single brief scene in the first half of the film before being brought to the forefront suddenly and abruptly in the latter half of the film, usually just to give the action a sense of stakes. A sailor/spy and his mute wife are characterised solely as their descriptions, the various soldiers and officers are almost indistinguishable from each other, and the main villain, a dead-serious and dull ‘Pirate Commander’ leading the Japanese fleet, has less personality than his ornate helmet.

The focus then is on actor Choi Min-sik’s central turn as Admiral Sun-Shin, historic naval genius. Choi Min-sik is one of the best contemporary South Korean actors out there, noted for roles in films like ‘Oldboy’ and ‘I Saw the Devil’. He’s an actor with great range and talent. Unfortunately his version of Sun-Shin comes across as far too stoic, pensive and aloof, with a lot of the acting credit going to his beard. Most of his acting here involves standing or sitting silently while looking pensive, often while other characters are looking to him for orders or assurance.

While the real-life man was apparently very charismatic, a naval genius and one who commanded a great deal of respect, here he seems far too aloof and distant. None of his men have faith in him, but it’s not like he helps the situation. His response to every situation is to stand there and stare silently, often in slow motion. When his troops ask him what his plans are or what their battle strategy is, or even when looking for any words of encouragement or even a rousing speech, Sun-Shin doesn’t do or say anything. In the few occasions where he does interact with his troops, it’s not pleasant – he’s either beheading deserters, telling them that they should die protecting the navy and generally compounding the fear and panic amongst his own troops, to the point that when the battle does start most of his ships hang back. He basically fights most of the final battle on his own with one ship while his tiny fleet stay far back on the verge of retreat.

I might be a little unfair, since the man was under a lot of stress and emotional/physical pain – he was still recovering from being horribly tortured by his own King, he was physically ill, his massive awesome navy that he built from scratch was all but wiped out by incompetence from others – but this is too much of an inward portrayal of a stone-faced man who refuses to show emotion. There are a few times where we get a glimpse inside – during a fever-induced delirium he hallucinates the dead soldiers of his navy and is struck at the guilt of not being there in battle with them (not his fault, he was being tortured at the time) – but beyond that he’s a hard, harsh man, much like the ships he commands, and it makes it hard to believe he’d be able to rally his men or command a navy.  

The naval battle itself, which takes up the entire latter half of the film, is pretty impressive, with a surprising amount of variety. Changing tides, violent winds, enemy riflemen, hailing arrows, cannon fire, rocky shallows, boarding pirates and more complicate the naval battle, with every few minutes being punctuated by an explosion of cannon shot, gunpowder and bits of ship as various soldiers are thrown about violently. CGI is used to good effect (they could hardly get together some hundred plus real ships to smash into each other), and coupled with the costume and set design make the whole thing look pretty great. Actually the film on the whole looks great overall, with an authentic feel. It captures the feel I’d assume naval warfare would have, with rocky boasts, sea foam frothing up from ships smashing into each other and the oddly claustrophobic nature battle on the high seas would have. Since it’s a single battle as well, you definitely get the feel of exhaustion that comes from the constant fighting, as Sun-Sin’s signature ship gets progressively more damaged, and his men more bloodied and broken.

Since the battle takes up half the film, they pace it out pretty well, and have a few moments for breathers. They also at least give some form of explanation as to why the Japanese navy doesn’t just send all three hundred ships at once and trounce the Koreans (the battle is fought in a somewhat narrow stretch of land with swells that the smaller Japanese ships would struggle against). Actually adhering to history makes the seemingly outlandish story have more weight and truth to it. The Korean warships were larger and sturdier than their Japanese opponents and were better suited for cannon warfare forcing the Japanese to try and close distance and board them, but the odds still weren’t in their favour at all. The final battle also gets spaced out a little due to many of the side characters side plots being brought to the forefront. These things take the attention away from Sun-Sin, but at least spice up the battle without making it feel padded out. The battle does make it seem like Sun-Sin fought almost the entire battle with his one ship, and that pure chance, coincidence and a bit of luck came into play, but that might have been the case anyway.

The film actually reminded me a bit of John Woo’s ‘Red Cliff’, another historical drama based on real events, but dramatized to hell and back with a lot more romance, light humour and kung-fu swordplay. That film was much lighter and more fictionalised than The Admiral, but had a better handle on dealing with its multiple characters, giving them each enough attention and personality to make them feel real. The Admiral doesn’t manage that, and even with its focus on Sun-Sin it never really manages the personal feel it seemed to be going for. On the other hand it at least focused better on offering a more realistic, somewhat more historically accurate version of its real-life event than Red Cliff. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, and based on those merits I think I preferred Red Cliff to The Admiral, though they offer different experiences and The Admiral is definitely worth watching.

Mojin: The Lost Legend

In ancient China, during the feudal battle between three kingdoms that fractured the nation (as outlined and romanticised in various books, movies and videogames), an emperor tasked treasure hunters with raiding the tombs of past emperors and royalty for gold and treasures to fund his armies. These treasure hunters were known as the Mojin Xiaowei, trained down generations in uncovering tombs, navigating crypts, avoiding traps and gathering all sorts of riches. But beyond their raiding, the Mojin were also taught to respect those places, and to place a single candle at the southeast end of every tomb. If the candle was to go out, the spirits were displeased and the Mojin had to leave the tomb, and any treasure, immediately. Or so says Mojin: The Lost Legend, a Chinese adventure film that seems to try and tick every single box on a checklist of generic tomb-raiding genre films. It’s astoundingly by-the-numbers, with an exceptionally basic story drowning in cliches and paper thin  stock characters, but for what it is it’s a fun, diverting little romp with some cool set pieces and special effects, even if it lacks originality and a satisfying narrative. Provided you just want to shut your brain off and watch tomb raiding nonsense, Mojin is fine.

Hu and Wang are lifelong best friends and Mojin Xiaowei, or Treasure Hunters, carrying the tools and knowledge of tomb raiders passed down through generations from feudal times. But after some failed expeditions they’ve given that life up and have illegally immigrated to 1980s America where they scrape out a meagre living selling junk on the street and evading immigration police. While the two wash-ups get drunk and lament their lives, their former partner, and Hu’s former flame, Shirley (Shu Qi) attempts to get them to sort their lives out, return to tomb raiding and go legitimate, something Wang is eager to do but Hu is opposed to.

Tired of Hu’s negativity, Wang gets hired by members of a powerful, affluent cult to head back to China and hunt down an ancient artefact known as the Equinox Flower. The treasure has an important link to an integral event in both Hu and Wang’s youths, some twenty years back in rural China in the sixties when they were travelling with enthusiastic communist Red Guard students. Determined to amend for a past mistake that haunts the both of them, Wang heads to find the tomb and the treasure for closure, forcing a reluctant Hu and Shirley to follow. Together the trio will face the tomb’s deadly traps, the nefarious plans of the cult and their own pasts.

 

Speaking of pasts, a big theme in the film, and the major bulk of the character development, is about letting go of the past. It’s here that the film weirdly gets stuck. The past is discussed at length, returned to (through a lengthy flashback) or focused on, with ‘the past’ being central to almost every character’s motivations and personality. It also largely dictates the film’s structure. The first half of the film mostly just introduces Hu, Wang and Shirley, with a bulky section being made up of that lengthy flashback to Hu and Wang’s near-fatal ordeal within an abandoned, cursed Japanese military base. It’s fun, spooky stuff, but having so much focus on the past (and that event in particular) makes the rest of the movie feel thin, so the stuff in the present lacks a sense of urgency or importance. When it comes right down to the actual real-day plot events, Hu and Wang are hired to investigate a tomb and then immediately go there and do so. The links to the past also make any and every twist or revelation blindingly obvious. It’s almost ironic that a movie about letting go of the past is completely unable to let go of the past.

We have some fun cliche characters, though they’re all tried-and-true stock characters and horrifically thin. Hu is our roguish hero, the sort of expert treasure hunter with confidence and swagger that these movies get, only this version is largely washed up (at least initially). He’s got the smirking confidence, charm and skills to back it up, and works well off of the other characters. He’s sort of likeable, made more so because of the pretty great comedic chemistry he has with his co-stars. Wang is largely the comic relief, the more enthusiastic but less skilled treasure hunter (he’s a bit obnoxious). He weirdly becomes a bit of a driving force for the film. Shirley, played by Shu Qi, brings some good comedic timing and chemistry as Hu’s partner/sometime lover, giving her character a sort of kickass girl personality. Offering more comedic relief is Grill, the hapless ‘representative/agent’ who eagerly tries to sell Hu and Wang’s talents and finds himself constantly being injured as he’s forced to follow them in the tomb.

Hu and Wang share a fixation on Ding, the Red Guard girl they both had a crush on in the sixties and the reason for their issues – letting go of the past means letting go of Ding. There’s a problem with this – Ding isn’t interesting or likeable and you can’t understand why they’d be so thoroughly entranced with her to the point where twenty years later they’d still be thinking of her. She’s naïve, she comes across as ignorant, and besides a pretty face and a love of flowers she’s astoundingly not interesting. She’s played by actress/model Angelababy, who has given somewhat similar roles in the past a lot more pep and humour, but Ding is underwritten and bland, which sadly fits for a character written more as a plot device than an actual person. She’s just a bit weird and a little creepy, especially since she’s basically a hard core communist. Actually the whole ‘travelling with communists/maybe being communists’ past angle is really strange.

If there needed to be more characterisation for anybody, it’d be the villains, who are paper thin and basic. They’re a mysterious cult determined to find a powerful artefact, which is exactly the same antagonists in just about every treasure-hunting movie ever. There offer no surprises, and even their leader’s twist at the end can be seen coming from a mile away. Apart from the creepy leader, a cult-leader sort with mismatched eyes who has total control over her blindly loyal followers, there’s also a shifty businessman and a dual-hatchet wielding badass girl whose evil organisation’s outfit seems modelled on schoolgirl clothes. They fit their part, but aren’t exactly memorable. They’re also idiots, either blindly walking into or triggering every single trap.

Speaking of idiots, the Red Guard communist students in the flashback are almost wilfully stupid, blindly following their communist ideology to their deaths. The moment they come across some ominously creepy statues in an obviously sacred place they decide to stop their journey in the middle of the night to knock them over. This backfires spectacularly (blood-thirsty mosquitoes are pretty horrifying), forcing them into the abandoned military base, where they find more creepy statues and the entire dumbass dance starts again, this time with mummified Japanese WW2 soldier zombies. It’s actually pretty awesome, especially seeing those idiots get comeuppance at the hands/spears/swords/rifles of the shuffling, dried out undead.

Movies about ancient treasures and tombs are always poised to deliver some great fun with deadly traps, creepy ruins, glorious treasures and ancient thrills. Mojin delivers on all this. We get swarms of blood-drinking mosquitos, several different types of zombies (seriously, there’re a few of them), unnatural green flames and collapsing tombs. While not especially original, it’s all done exceptionally well and make for a very fun time. The mystery behind the tomb ends up being pretty simple, but the journey there is a fun one. Also adding to the fun is the weird way the Mojin Xiaowei navigate them, using a mystical compass and either Feng Shui or the Chinese zodiac (I’m not entirely sure). It’s novel and strange, though it doesn’t get much of an explanation.

If this all sounds fun as mindless adventure film fodder, then that’s because it mostly is – the movie manages to coast on the inherent enjoyment of tomb-raiding treasure-hunting stories. It’s fun enough without managing to transcend or improve on the sort of films it apes. It is a bit too long towards the end where it drags out a bit, especially because it starts to repeat itself. Hu and Wang argue about the past constantly, even being to sole focus of two consecutive scenes of them having the same argument. The romance between Hu and Shirley and whether they’ll get together is a redundant concern, same with the ‘are these cult people secretly evil?’ thing, since the answer to both is a blaringly obvious yes. And Ding! We can’t ever seem to get away from her, always popping up in flashbacks and hallucinations. In an interesting sort of twist on the usual formulae though, the main hero isn’t the one with the drive and personal stakes; instead it’s the comic relief character, Wang, who finds himself compelled to finish the job and uncover the tomb. Of course the hero, Hu, does eventually eclipse this, taking Wang’s guilt and drive and sort of stealing it for the finale, but for a while it was interesting to see the comic relief sidekick as the actual emotional core, even if only for a moment.

Mojin: The Lost Legend is fun enough. While its faults are mostly directed to the thin, basic, stock nature of its story and characters, the rest of it is pretty earnest, with some cool special effects and set/costume design. The effort is there, but not spread evenly across every aspect.

Glory to the Filmmaker!

Takeshi Kitano, known by his stage name Beat Takeshi, is probably best known in the West for the various Yakuza movies he’s directed and starred in. The veteran Japanese actor has directed and starred in films like Violent Cop, Boiling Point, Brother and Outrage, owned the antagonist role in Battle Royale and even directed, wrote and starred in Zatoichi, a reboot of the old film series. The man has presence on and off the screen, his films characterised by ultra-violence, the mechanics of the Yakuza underworld, themes of nihilism and meaninglessness, and bouts of black humour, while his characters tend to be pensive, deadpan killers with strict codes of loyalty. In his home country though, Kitano is better known as a comedian and television personality, which is how he started his career. That might explain what exactly ‘Glory to the Filmmaker!’ is, a meta, bizarre cinematic diversion and return to his comedic roots, while also encompassing his career as a director, his image, the filmmaking world and what I guess he thinks is funny. It’s an absolutely insane film, one that feels like an excuse or outlet for Kitano to let out all the jokes and comedy bits he’s wanted to make.

The plot starts out meta before going completely off the rails. Famous Japanese director Takeshi Kitano decides to stop making ultra-violent gangster movies, pledging to expand his repertoire by moving away from bloody violence and branching out into other genres. The problem is he has no idea what sort of film he should make, being entirely clueless as to what audiences want to see. He tries his hand at almost every genre, from dialogue-driven drama, romance, tear-jerkers, horror films, ninja action movies and dramatic period pieces, and every single attempt ends in some sort of massive failure, be it boring scripts, nonsensical plots and characters or Kitano somehow accidentally reverting back to making movies about gangsters.

He eventually settles on making a big budget sci-fi disaster film, but upon realising that the disaster itself (the cliché of a meteorite heading straight for earth) isn’t enough to carry the film he starts to write in a group of ‘interesting’ characters, from a money-grubbing mother/daughter duo, a mad scientist and a peculiar man who can suddenly change into a metal dummy at will (played by Kitano). Things then get completely out of hand as the movie fills up with weird and wacky nonsense characters in bizarre, nonsense situations, the film devolving into nonsense sketch-like antics.

 

Glory is a film of two disparate parts, both of which offer substantially different kinds of humour. The first half is focused on the humour of film and genres, poking fun at the tropes and cinematic conventions that show up in movies. The second half is where things go off the rails completely, with a wackier, sillier, completely absurdist sense of humour. Unlike most other comedies, there isn’t any real plot. Kitano wanting to make a movie, but being unable to find success is the running drive through the first half’s collection of mini-films, but the second half has no such purpose, other than to just go for broke. You won’t understand why Kitano has teamed up with a mad scientist and is piloting a robot suit, but you probably don’t need to. As a result, the movie has an odd pace, and the complete lack of an actual narrative means it’s mostly just a series of ridiculous jokes until a big, ridiculous finale. It wasn’t an issue for me, but if you aren’t on board with the film’s type of humour then the movie might feel aimless.

 In the first half the humour largely comes from the various riffs and piss-takes (often earnest and completely straight) of various genre movies, from the interminably slow and dull talkie drama (mostly involving ordinary people sitting at a table and drinking while making mundane conversation), to the nonsense clichéd tropes of a ninja action movie. Some of it is absolutely sublime – his Japanese horror movie (involving a head-collecting killer wearing a traditional Japanese theatre mask) gets absurdly on-point when a shrieking girl in a bikini randomly appears from nowhere for no reason whatsoever. It’s also insanely funny seeing Takeshi Kitano himself in all these roles he’s painfully miscast in. His slouched posture and stoic stillness make every one of the romance films he attempts to make seem even more ridiculous. The weirdness and humour also comes in how earnest some of these ‘films’ are. The longest one by far is also (mostly) played completely straight, a grim ‘honest’, surprisingly/seemingly earnest drama set in a small town in the 50s that involves youngsters growing up amidst poverty and domestic abuse that takes a few sudden, somewhat unrealistic ‘dramatic’ leaps until the narrator puts a stop to it.

The second half is instantly far looser and more sketch-like in design as the characters and situations get wackier, the jokes get sillier and nonsense rules supreme. We get pratfalls, dumb puns, purposefully bad jokes, abundant slapstick and overwhelming absurdity. It’s hard to even describe some of the randomness that goes on. The already near-non-existent plot is quickly forgotten as we go about random little bizarre comedy bits following the strange characters. It ditches the movie-making premise the film started with entirely, with the narrator disappearing completely as actual characters appear (no matter how silly or ridiculous).  The initial disaster film plot is immediately discarded to follow its selection of weirdos. A lot of it is really just a series of sketches or comedy bits. For example, the mother/daughter duo attempt to skimp out on paying for a meal at a restaurant by placing a fake cockroach into their meal. Before they can complain a massive group of scary-looking gangsters try to pull the same stunt. When the two chefs come out they’re revealed to be absolutely massive wrestlers who absolutely pummel the crap out of the gangsters, destroying much of the restaurant in the process. Its bonkers crazy, has nothing to do with anything and signals the film’s shift in priorities as the two chefs perform wrestling moves (all sorts of faux-punches, tag-team swings and throws) in a part that feels ripped right from a comedy variety half-hour show. Which, as it turns out, might have been the entire point – Kitano was primarily a comedian before he became known as a maker of gangster/Yakuza flicks. This film seems largely made out of his desire to harken back to his comedy antics and goofy sense of humour.

Kitano and his dummy double get used in some funny moments, where his ability to switch at any moment being treated as a superpower. Even better are the scene where his steel double is meant to be doing something amazing or acrobatic, such as flipping through the air, and you can clearly see the film crew clad in black just rotating the dummy by hand. Kitano himself brings a surprisingly goofy humour to the film, breaking from his usual stoic demeanour to crack a little smile or engage in some nonsense pantomime or slapstick routine. It’s a lot of really silly, more often completely insane broad humour. That’s not to say there isn’t cleverness underneath it all with some subtle, understated visual humour jokes – for example, the mother/daughter duo’s clothes slowly switch over as the film continues until they’ve completely swapped outfits by the end. The cast do a really great job all things considered, playing their roles really well. In the first half everybody plays things perfectly straight which makes the various different genre films even funnier, while in the second half it’s nonsense ahoy, but the comedic timing and on-point absurdity is spot on.

 

Whether you’ll like Glory to the Filmmaker! or not is completely dependent on your sense of humour. It reaches pretty broadly, with an insane variety of nonsense on offer from wordplay, puns, slapstick, visual humour and more thoughtful references (there’re more than a few nods to some of Kitano’s other films). The differing styles of humour in the first and second halves make it a very real possibility that you might love one half and hate the other, and the switch from a more understated comedy to full-on silliness can be jarring since it happens so suddenly and thoroughly. But as a comedic distraction Glory to the Filmmaker is a lot of fun. It’s aimless, ultimately meaningless (whether or not the movie gets made or even exists at all is beside the point), but the experience is a fun one. It might even be a little autobiographical – most of Kitano’s filmography consists of Yakuza movies, so this is a noticeable departure, and the early premise of him trying to move away from gangster films, him struggling and failing and the sheer insanity that occurs when he really lets loose and does whatever might be true to life.