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cchamb
Reviews
Musa (2001)
Good enough, but by no means a great movie
I typically enjoy films like this one, but there is a lot of room for improvement for North American release of Musa.
Overall it was pretty good. There are several great battle scenes with great choreography, but don't expect the same gravity defying fights you'd see in a movie like Crouching Tiger or House of Flying Daggers. These fights were more along the lines of Braveheart. In other words, the laws of physics were generally observed during battle. The fight scenes are mostly believable.
The story also works on multiple levels. Key themes included leadership under pressure, loyalty, love, designated class roles, and courage. This isn't simply an action movie. The characters are believable and interesting. The story is well written and well executed.
One of my favorite things about this movie is the landscape. I really felt a sense of "being there" in the alternately scorching and freezing desert. The region where it was filmed is clearly both beautiful and forbidding at once.
Now for my complaints. First, I don't think the translation to English subtitles was very well done. The subtitles were filled with spelling and grammatical errors, but that wasn't as bad as the very brief length of time they were displayed on the screen. Sometimes the words would appear so briefly that I had to rewind two or three times to catch a key phrase. This didn't happen terribly often, but it was often enough to be annoying. It made me wonder if this DVD went through any sort of quality assurance before being packaged.
Second, two languages are spoken throughout the movie, Korean and a dialect of Chinese, (Cantonese maybe?). Communication between the Korean and Chinese characters, or the lack thereof, plays a significant role in the movie. Not being able to tell the difference between the two languages, I feel like I missed out on something. For example, when one of the Korean soldiers was addressing the mixed party of Korean and Chinese characters, I just assumed everyone could understand him. Later I realized that wasn't the case. It was a mental exercise to remember who on the screen would be able to understand whomever was speaking at the moment. Obviously a native speaker of either language would have had a much easier time following this aspect of the storyline.
Third, I found it difficult to understand the cultural motivations and distinctions between some of the characters. There were several social classes represented in the movie including peasants, royalty, envoys, slaves, military officers, and enlisted soldiers. The caste system wasn't explained and didn't translate well to a Western viewer like myself. A viewer with a prior understanding would have gotten more out of this aspect of the movie, recognizing what kind character interaction is normal or taboo.