2: It’s set in “Ansi Fortress”. What does “American National Standards Institute” have to do with a Korean fortress? Don’t mind me, I spent over 30 years programming with enhanced versions of ANSI-standard COBOL. But not to worry, it’s not much of a fortress anyway.
3: Silly me — I expect fortresses to have walls that completely enclose the interior. But the movie “fortress” looked like just a wall across a level plain. The sides and rear seemed to be just undefended hills and forest. Instead of going right at the middle of the wall, the enemy could have just sent some infantry on a short hike to outflank it and the whole thing should have been over in an hour. FWIW I’ve seen similar outflankable walls (or maybe just the same one being reused?) in several kdramas. I *guess* k-set designers long ago fell into a low-budget rut and built one cheap wall to re-use in every sageuk ever, and then they built/CG-ed a slightly fancier one for this movie (?). Along the way k-audiences got conditioned to accept rather silly fortifications. (See pics of fortress interior and what is behind it).
4: Siege engines & fight scenes were not especially absurd by TV/movie standards *cough*Vagabond*cough*. Worst part was how they set fire to the siege towers.
5: So the heroic defense surely saved Goguryeo, right? Uh, 23 years later…
I watched this a couple of weeks ago! Usually, I always pay close attention to movies since they go by pretty quickly, but for this one I put as background noise, but my neighbors were having a party so I couldn’t really hear anything over their music😑😂. Like you said, watchable.
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Lord Cobol (Kdramas, like water, flow downhill)
November 16, 2019 at 11:31 AM
The Great Battle (2018 Korean movie) Mini-Review / Snark-Post:
1: Several battle/siege scenes seem to be imitating Lord of the Rings / Return of the King, but a few night scenes could almost have been inspired by a certain notoriously photon-deprived episode of Game of Thrones.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/a-post-action-analysis-of-gots-battle-of-winterfell-through-a-glass-darkly/
2: It’s set in “Ansi Fortress”. What does “American National Standards Institute” have to do with a Korean fortress?
Don’t mind me, I spent over 30 years programming with enhanced versions of ANSI-standard COBOL. But not to worry, it’s not much of a fortress anyway.3: Silly me — I expect fortresses to have walls that completely enclose the interior. But the movie “fortress” looked like just a wall across a level plain. The sides and rear seemed to be just undefended hills and forest. Instead of going right at the middle of the wall, the enemy could have just sent some infantry on a short hike to outflank it and the whole thing should have been over in an hour. FWIW I’ve seen similar outflankable walls (or maybe just the same one being reused?) in several kdramas. I *guess* k-set designers long ago fell into a low-budget rut and built one cheap wall to re-use in every sageuk ever, and then they built/CG-ed a slightly fancier one for this movie (?). Along the way k-audiences got conditioned to accept rather silly fortifications. (See pics of fortress interior and what is behind it).
4: Siege engines & fight scenes were not especially absurd by TV/movie standards *cough*Vagabond*cough*. Worst part was how they set fire to the siege towers.
5: So the heroic defense surely saved Goguryeo, right? Uh, 23 years later…
Overall score: watchable, not great.
Jellybn
November 16, 2019 at 2:20 PM
I watched this a couple of weeks ago! Usually, I always pay close attention to movies since they go by pretty quickly, but for this one I put as background noise, but my neighbors were having a party so I couldn’t really hear anything over their music😑😂. Like you said, watchable.