Historical accuracy: 7
Acting: 9 Camera work: 8 Editing: 8 Budget: 7 Story: 7 Theme: 8 Pure entertainment factor: 7 Video quality: 7 Special effects: NA Pacing: 7 Suspension of disbelief: 7 Non-cringe factor: 9 Lack of flashbacks: 7
Good movie. A recommended watch for sure for history fans and just people seeking a slow-pace drama. The acting is good, the sets quite decent, the story historically good and important.
Now, what makes and breaks the movie is everything that is a creative license or weird. And much is too dull and dry. Firstly the movie has the South Korean blackness to it where black is used and overused for everything. South Korean movies are often black, brown, and gray and not much else with a brooding unserious atmosphere where everything is a tad weird and unrealistic and emotional outbursts comedic. It's actually what makes South Korean movies quite bad compared to the best of Hollywood. But they always are a tad deeper and more emotional too and the average quality is quite decent. It does add dullness to it.
The acting is very subdued with the lead/assassin never revealing his feelings or ideas. He is the director of KCIA. The main intelligence agency in South Korea. He kills and tortures people for the dictator as he is his lifelong friend and follows everything he says. The dictator is still young even after 18 years in power and at this point felt more brave. He found a new best friend in the director of his security service. Cha was more brutal and constantly told the dictator that his brutal ideas should be implemented. In 1979 the dictator started talking about killing protestors and his old friend assassinated him. But instead of going to his own office he went to the army offices where people didn't know or trust him and hence he was arrested. Because why would they put him in power? Many months later a new military coup occurred with a new dictator arriving.
Here they do what The Damned United (2009) did. They follow the historical scenes and events, but create a story via motivation. In The Damned United it was extreme jealousy in every single scene. Not a single scene was about anything else. Here we know that the KCIA director did fear for his position. He was more democratically minded and was pushed to the side. He at last felt he needed to kill the dictator to remain in power yet was executed the next year. Here it's the driving force with him even at one point spying on the president/dictator by sneaking into his house and listening in on a meeting. Clearly something that would never happen. He overall does most of the stuff himself so when we finally see him work with KCIA agents to kill the dictator it feels weird. He never seemed to have anyone on his side and now at the very end we see him command his own agents. Bad movie making.
There are also some fictional scenes like the murder of the former KCIA director ordered by the current one. It was done in France a few months prior to the dictator assassination. In reality we don't know how he died or where, but this is assumed to be true. He had released his own book on the dictator that KCIA wanted to cancel. While here they seemingly allude to the new KCIA director having leaked it by having a scene where the former KCIA director directly says he never released it. And when they kill him they show how KCIA agents are out tricking the Presidential Security Service agents to kidnap him before they grab him. Just utter nonsense, but a creative license you can take when the real history is unknown I guess. Still, bad idea.
Overall the brooding atmosphere makes it feel unreal and too slow to be a true story. But we get an idea of what happened. The changed names and various weird creative licenses both add and subtract from the movie. Some events are of course unrealistic others just too slow and drab, but true. Overall I liked the movie and history even though they often mention things without explaining them like talking about a South Korean corruption scandal in USA, Koreagate. A giant deal yet they only mention it one time without going over how many congressmen could be imprisoned for it later on. There are a lot of debates about things and unless you know Korean history this may feel extra boring or complex. But it also makes you want to read up on it.
Acting: 9 Camera work: 8 Editing: 8 Budget: 7 Story: 7 Theme: 8 Pure entertainment factor: 7 Video quality: 7 Special effects: NA Pacing: 7 Suspension of disbelief: 7 Non-cringe factor: 9 Lack of flashbacks: 7
Good movie. A recommended watch for sure for history fans and just people seeking a slow-pace drama. The acting is good, the sets quite decent, the story historically good and important.
Now, what makes and breaks the movie is everything that is a creative license or weird. And much is too dull and dry. Firstly the movie has the South Korean blackness to it where black is used and overused for everything. South Korean movies are often black, brown, and gray and not much else with a brooding unserious atmosphere where everything is a tad weird and unrealistic and emotional outbursts comedic. It's actually what makes South Korean movies quite bad compared to the best of Hollywood. But they always are a tad deeper and more emotional too and the average quality is quite decent. It does add dullness to it.
The acting is very subdued with the lead/assassin never revealing his feelings or ideas. He is the director of KCIA. The main intelligence agency in South Korea. He kills and tortures people for the dictator as he is his lifelong friend and follows everything he says. The dictator is still young even after 18 years in power and at this point felt more brave. He found a new best friend in the director of his security service. Cha was more brutal and constantly told the dictator that his brutal ideas should be implemented. In 1979 the dictator started talking about killing protestors and his old friend assassinated him. But instead of going to his own office he went to the army offices where people didn't know or trust him and hence he was arrested. Because why would they put him in power? Many months later a new military coup occurred with a new dictator arriving.
Here they do what The Damned United (2009) did. They follow the historical scenes and events, but create a story via motivation. In The Damned United it was extreme jealousy in every single scene. Not a single scene was about anything else. Here we know that the KCIA director did fear for his position. He was more democratically minded and was pushed to the side. He at last felt he needed to kill the dictator to remain in power yet was executed the next year. Here it's the driving force with him even at one point spying on the president/dictator by sneaking into his house and listening in on a meeting. Clearly something that would never happen. He overall does most of the stuff himself so when we finally see him work with KCIA agents to kill the dictator it feels weird. He never seemed to have anyone on his side and now at the very end we see him command his own agents. Bad movie making.
There are also some fictional scenes like the murder of the former KCIA director ordered by the current one. It was done in France a few months prior to the dictator assassination. In reality we don't know how he died or where, but this is assumed to be true. He had released his own book on the dictator that KCIA wanted to cancel. While here they seemingly allude to the new KCIA director having leaked it by having a scene where the former KCIA director directly says he never released it. And when they kill him they show how KCIA agents are out tricking the Presidential Security Service agents to kidnap him before they grab him. Just utter nonsense, but a creative license you can take when the real history is unknown I guess. Still, bad idea.
Overall the brooding atmosphere makes it feel unreal and too slow to be a true story. But we get an idea of what happened. The changed names and various weird creative licenses both add and subtract from the movie. Some events are of course unrealistic others just too slow and drab, but true. Overall I liked the movie and history even though they often mention things without explaining them like talking about a South Korean corruption scandal in USA, Koreagate. A giant deal yet they only mention it one time without going over how many congressmen could be imprisoned for it later on. There are a lot of debates about things and unless you know Korean history this may feel extra boring or complex. But it also makes you want to read up on it.