Hrannar Baldursson
I caught this movie on Netflix. Had never heard about it before, and was pleasantly surprised. The characters are deep, the dialogue is fun, the action is fantastic, the story great, and the special effects OK. Most impressive of all was the solid acting, especially during the final fight sequence. Lovely stuff.This movie brings me back in time, into a dark movie theater, at the very end of 'The Matrix', back in 1999. It had such a promising ending, and then they announced sequels that turned out to be poor.Even though 'Woochi' is not a sequel to 'The Matrix', it feels like a movie that successfully went where those sequels didn't go. Highly recommended for those who enjoy fantasy, action, and a bit of time travel.
Barry Cooper
A film with time travelling Goblin Rabbits trying to steal a pipe that will
.I don't know what. This is Asian cinema at its best. A story built on eastern story telling. Young buck, wise old master, humorous sidekick (who may or may not be a dog of indeterminate gender) and a love interest with guts and gumption when needed most.Following the apprentice Wizard Woochi (Don Wong-Kan) and his shape shifting Dogberry-esque friend Chorangyi and their hunt for the magic that will make Woochi's name and Chorangyi human.Fight scenes of inventiveness that take the stylistic quirks of the later Matrix films and make them great, comedic timing and watch out for the reality of magic in the second act (21st century) as we find out what would really happen if you had to seek out a magic painting at two in the morning in downtown Pyongyang.Betrayal, magic, drunken Taoist gods who can't seem to get anything right and a downbeat upbeat ending that wraps the film up in the brilliance of the eponymous hero's own imagination.This is a film for teenagers, lovers of story and people who don't take themselves seriously.Big bag of popcorn.
diggus doggus
Woochi is a fantastic film. I saw this film in Chinese with subtitles, so i'm a bit fuzzy on the plot, but it revolves around a young, charismatic wizard and his magical escapades. Great costumes, discreet acting, lovely photography.Absolutely gross, horrid, mind-numbingly bad direction and editing. If you can tolerate two hours of one-second long cuts, then this film is for you. yep, my rating ins't the result of a slipped mouse click or Explorer bug, it's really 1/10; Woochi is a constant brain-damaging multitude of cuts, every single time an actor says a line the camera has to switch facing him - if Hitchcock turns in his grave a quarter turn per camera cut, you would have him spinning so fast you could power a city if you could just stick a turbine in there with him. Seriously, i dare you to watch this film - 10 minutes in and i had a headache. In the very first scene, there are four elder priests talking animately, and every time one of them starts a sentence (in someone else's mid-sentence) the camera makes a cut.I propose cutting off the balls of the man who edited this.Final rating - below zero.
DaliParton
(spoiler free) I've watched a lot of Korean movies over the years - from the silly (Sex is Zero) to the sublime (Oasis) and enjoyed most of them, even some of the more marginal titles like Spygirl and A.F.R.I.K.A. But for me, and the group of people watching it with me, Jeon Woochi was a big bust.The biggest problem I had with this movie was the terrible pacing, especially in the first 30 minutes of the movie where the timeline was not linear and the director did practically nothing to inform the audience that he had made a jump in time until wrapping up the scene and rejoining the main timeline. Other problems included a major lack of funny - there was so much opportunity for "fish out of water" jokes, but the writers barely even tried. And it wasn't like the comedy was too subtle either, much of the humor in the movie was just too ham-fisted to laugh at.There were also way too many fast cuts during action sequences - it made it difficult to enjoy the biggest feature of the movie: the excellent CGI. The director barely gives the audience a chance to focus on the contents of a shot before cutting to a new camera angle. I recognize these fast cuts are a modern Hollywood style, but it is still a terrible one to emulate.The story itself was, as expected, fairly simple. But even then, the telling of it was too convoluted - due mainly to the confusing timeline.I haven't given any examples to illustrate my criticism because I wanted to avoid spoilers as much as possible but still provide a counter-point to the misleadingly high rating (7.0 as I write this) and the other 5 or so reviews which all gave the movie exceptional scores. It was on the basis of that rating and the other reviews that I purchased the korean blu-ray and would strongly recommend that no one else waste their time or money the way I did. I suggest watching the older Arahan which has a similar "wizardry in the modern city" plot. I had a lot more fun watching Arahan despite its flaws.Also, watch out for the korean blu-ray. It is poorly mastered - the black levels are elevated making the picture look washed out and hazy unless you have a fancy display that can correct the problem.
AD
