Joong-cheon - The Restless

Joong-cheon - The Restless
South Korea
2006
Starring:  Jun-ho Heo, Woo-sung Jung, and Kwang-il Kim

The Restless presents life and death in a distinctly unique fashion.  From hoards of demons, legendary swordsmen, ethereal guardians, legions of the dead, and of course one beautiful love this movie moves through the life and afterlife with stunning visual sequences.

This movie is listed as a horror in virtually every database, but it's certainly not what I as a westerner consider a horror.  The movie has elements of adventure, action, fantasy, and romance.  All the ingredients I need to sit down and try to dedicate a couple of hours to something.

Joong-cheon  is also full of visually stunning sequences.  It was nomiated for the Most Visually Stunning movie in the 2007 Asian Film Festival and it won the Best Art Direction award in the Grand Bell Awards.  It contained some very well choreographed fight scenes too.  The Restless is a unique journey through this world and the afterlife.  For fans of the fantasy martial arts genre I recommend this movie.  There are some parts that I had to shake my head at, but all in all this is a pretty cool movie.

Shin ge jeon - The Divine Weapon

Shin ge Jeon - The Divine Weapon
2008
Korea
Starring:  Jae-yeong Jeong, Eun-jeong Han, and Jun-ho Heo

We all know that China invented gunpowder right?  So this wonderful invention that for centuries in written history did nothing but flash Korea found a way to turn into a propellant.  Korea developed the first rocket propelled arrows.

This movie is a great movie detailing the formulation of a weapon and what it can take out of a family and a nation when one is on the right path of destruction.

Between the development of the fire arrow, martial arts, Korean period outfits, and a decent story I really have to say I enjoyed this movie.  Korean movies are a little difficult to follow sometimes, but this one was worth the effort.  I learned quite a bit about what modern weaponry developed from by watching this movie and I truly just enjoyed the story itself!

I recommend this movie for anyone that is a weapons or martial arts fan; sure there are some slow parts, but it's not that bad if you love the first two qualifiers.  Korea did historically create advanced weapons from gunpowder anyway.  This movie was both entertaining if you dig Korean cinema and insightful in a slightly historic way.  No matter what you're after this movie was cool.

Quote:  "We'll test the Grand Singijeon in the morning, then it will all be over."