• Oct 15
• WAR OF THE ARROWS: Review
• Posted by Deljhp - 15/10/11 at 08:33 AM

Director: Kim Han-Min. Review: Adgy.

Back in the 1600’s countries in Asia didn’t get along so well. Manchuria (today’s northeastern China) seemed to especially have an issue with Korea, as they invaded them twice, first in 1627 and then again in 1636. Director Kim Han-min chose the second invasion as the setting for his latest, War Of The Arrows.

Arrows, Korea’s second highest grossing release so far this year, follows Nam-Yi, who is trying to rescue his sister after she and many other Koreans are taken prisoner by the invading Manchurians. Armed with only a bow and some arrows, Nam-Yi uses guerrilla fighting tactics to take out the Manchurians bit by bit. It’s a pretty simple plot, and once it’s set up, it gets the hell out of the way and lets the action and suspense take control. The majority of the film’s 2 hour runtime is focused on chases; Man-Yi chasing the Manchurians or the Manchurians chasing Nam-Yi. And it works.

Director Kim and his crew deserve a lot of credit for doing a really fantastic job making the action intense and exciting. The idea to make a bow and arrows the weapon of choice really paid off. With the time it takes to put bow to string, to take aim while taking wind conditions into account, the weapon is practically designed to be cinematically suspenseful. They use CGI and speeded up photography alongside fantastic design and editing to really make the fight sequences stand out...Continue review here.