|
|
 |
Restless (The)
R1 - America - Genius Products Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (17th June 2008). |
|
The Film
 Lately I’ve been confused by movies claiming to be “in the same vein” as other movies. It’s one thing to draw inspiration from other movies and that same genre, but lately “in the same vein” seems to mean “we took these two other movies that did really well, slapped them together and made something worse.” Sometimes these movies are so bad they’re hilariously-beautiful, but too often they’re just plain so bad they’re ignorable. Sadly “The Restless” (2006), a South Korean Fantasy Film, falls into the second category. “Restless” stars Jeong Woo-Seong as Yi Gwak, a demon slayer with the apparently unique ability to see spirits and ghosts. One night after slaying some demons outside a small village, he gets drugged by some of the villagers to get turned in for a bounty, but he luckily escapes, falls asleep, and winds up in Midheaven, a limbo for spirits before reincarnation. Here he runs in to the Spirit of his former lover Yon-hwa (Kim Tae-hee) who is leader of the white reapers but has no memory of him. Together they are tasked to take the Holy stone to the Pool of Reflection to rid Midheaven of the evil Ban-Chu (Heo Joon-ho), Yi’s former military commander. It gets to be a little ridiculous how much the plot of “Restless” borrows from Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy (2001-2003), with the Holy Stone becoming a simple replacement for the Ring of Power, two mystical items that grant special abilities that must be returned to the liquid region of a sinister looking volcano. The film's director tries to get some emotional drama and connection from between Yi Gwak and Yon-hwa that worked for Aragorn and Arwen, even to the point of having it necessary for her to sacrifice her immortality for her love for Yi Gwak. None of this really succeeds though, the drama and emotions between the two seem too melodramatic and over acted to really go anywhere with the romance. The directing also borrows liberally from Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings,” even to the point of directly taking the scene where the Hobbits hide under the road from the ring wraiths nearly shot for shot. Jo Dong-Oh ends up leaving out the key moments of tension, and instead does the sweeping pans, but cuts away from them to quickly to have an epic feel. At the same time the fight sequences of the movie borrow heavily from the “Wuxia” fantasy-martial-arts style, but don’t go for all of the grace that these styles of movie usually aim for. Every fight scene could be well choreographed, but it’s too hard to tell. Nearly every punch has to have its own extreme close-up that lasts for seconds, and by the time it’s over, time for the next hit. The sword fighting could also be impressive, but the viewer is never given the time to actually watch the fight, there are too many unnecessary cuts to the emotional reactions of the fighters and the occasional mystical happening. In the end, it’s an incredibly forgettable movie. The fights aren’t great, the special effects are nothing to write home about, and the plot itself is nothing new and almost leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Every back-story in the film is strictly functional, just getting out the bare bones of a plot element to keep the movie going. At one point Yon-hwa sums up the movie best when she cries out to Yi Gwak “I don’t know why I have to care about you!”
Video
“The Restless” is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and has a pretty good transfer, the film itself doesn’t look too grainy, and has some good use of color in some scenes. However, a lot of the style and color selection seems like a retread of old ground, there’s no flare that the director adds and there’s nothing really to make you say “wow” about the visuals.
Audio
“The Restless” presents a Korean Dolby digital 5.1 sound track. The score and dialogue aren’t anything special to listen to/read, but the audio is otherwise fine. However, there were some inconsistencies with the levels when the tone switches from action to dialogue that are a little frustrating. Optional English subtitles are included.
Extras
Genius Products has included a fairly small amount of bonus features that include, a making of documentary and a couple of featurettes. Below is a closer look at these supplements. The “Making of The Restless” documentary runs a full 52 minutes and 11 seconds. The director talks about his concerns as a first-time director and there’s a lot of behind the scenes on the wire work used in the fight scenes, and just general behind the camera footage. It’s a little frustrating that the documentary is edited so that the interviews rarely talk about the scene while there’s behind-the-scenes footage, as for the most part there’s nothing really to listen to during the making-of footage. There’s talk to the actors and other crew members as well, most of whom said they were nervous, but this didn’t really keep my interest. The first featurette “Reincarnation for 49 Days” runs for 12 minutes and 22 seconds and covers the story outline of the movie from the writer/director’s perspective, but a lot of it feels just like more behind the scenes footage they couldn’t squeeze in to the making-of. Finally the “Production Design” featurette, which also runs for 12 minutes and 22 seconds, goes deeper into the incredible amounts of cg used in the movie and the team behind it. There was nothing really special about the production design, so this featurette was not so interesting.
Overall
|
|||||
|