A bonus film, one I didn't include in last week's preview, as I did not realize it was showing. Apparently it only received a very limited U.S. release in 25 theatres or so.
It can be a very fine line between a film being luxuriously paced (good) and it being slowly paced (bad). This film fell on the wrong side of that line. It's the second time this year I have nodded off during a movie in theatres. I was fine for what was probably the last two thirds, but the first third had me really struggling to stay awake.
The film chronicles the 24 hours leading up to an assassination attempt on the Korean King. The film's major problem is that it spreads itself too thin. In an attempt to tell the story from the perspectives of several characters, it jumps back and forth between storylines frequently. This makes it hard for any individual storyline to build up momentum.
I'm not going to comment much more on the film since I did miss some of it, but I will say that it was extremely predictable, even when it tried not to be. There were some twists near the end that, in spite of missing some of the early exposition, I could see coming from a mile away. The film had its moments. Some of the battle scenes were well done and accompanied by a decent score, but they came too little too late. A merciless editor who could have trimmed the extensive fat of the film might have been able to make it a more watchable, if still unremarkable film.
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