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.