This Korean Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon styled epic may have been top dog in it’s homeland, but - with a liberal referencing of over thirty years of Hong Kong swordplay films - it’s really more of a mongrel…
With his moody, over the face hair style, Jinha (Shin Hyan-june) could have been an Asian pop superstar (though maybe not with that nose). Luckily the film is set in Southern China some 600 hundred years before the invention of an official chart.
Instead Jinha must contend with learning the Bichun ‘Flying Sword’ style from his uncle. Fate steps between him and his childhood soul mate Sullie (Kim Hee-seon) when her father, a Mongol general, returns. A trap is set to get rid of him so she can be married off to the son of a local powerful family, Junkwang.
Jinha survives, but discovers he’s not the humble pauper he thought he was, but the son of the local gentry who were assassinated He pulls together a band of flying warriors and sets himself on a course for revenge. Years later he returns to the village of Sanme-hyon to extract his revenge on the Mongol general and his family, including Sullie and her son - before he realises that it is his own child. (He even has his father’s hair - which should have been a giveaway!)
Too late he sees that his search for vengeance has all but consumed him and his love of Sullie. His new allies against the Mongols, a local Han family, are not not as benign as they appear, and they too seek to discover the secrets of the Bichun style. Yep, there can ONLY be a tragic ending…
Watching Bichunmoo is rather like watching over thirty years of Hong Kong swordplay movies distilled into two hours. It’s not just the themes we’ve all seen before, even the characters seem to have walked straight off other movies. Junkwang appears to have stumbled of a Shaw Brothers movie from the late seventies, Jinha’s master could be Yuen Sui-tien’s character from Drunken Master/Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, whilst Jinha himself with his moody, pop star hair could have dropped in from The Stormriders. Not to mention Kim Seong-jun’s soundtrack, which is equally as schizophrenic, jumping from classic Chinese melodies to Asian pop and even soft 80s rock.
That’s not necessarily a criticism, but what director Kim Young-jun fails to do is stamp the movie with any of his own personality, a cohesive panache that might have brought all these disparate elements together. Not helped by a rushed narrative that can easily lose the viewer (both the original and Hong Kong versions run slightly longer than the UK version reviewed). For instance, a woman who appears as an all too deadly rival to Sullie from nowhere (presumably the daughter of the Han family) is never really introduced.
With the relentless tragic events there’s little time for character development. The lead, Shin Hyun-june, lacks any real presence beyond his haircut. Kim Hee-seon, playing Sullie, doesn’t appear on screen without at least one tear in her eye. Only Jang Dong-jik as Junkwang manages to really make anything out of his role.
And it’s Young-jun’s use of all those borrowed classic, swordplay elements that ultimately becomes his downfall. His script reeks of a real naivete in filmmaking, one that would have been excusable in the 60s and 70s, but not since the 90s. It pales in comparison to the the beautiful, fairy tale vision of The Bride with White Hair, the CGI driven Stormriders or the post-MTV A Chinese Ghost Story. It also fails to bring that mature, knowing twist that Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou brought to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Hero respectively.
Bichumoo may have done extremely well at the Korean box office when it was released. In fact, it even out performed every Hollywood release save Gladiator and Mission Impossible 2. Yet it lacks the sophistication of other contemporary Korean movies like Shiri, Nowhere to Hide, Public Enemy and Musa: The Warrior - which covered similar ground far more spectacularly, and starred Crouching Tiger’s Zhang Ziyi to boot.
Young-jun doesn’t settle on any one cinematic style, creating a good looking but uninventive, almost wishy washy film that could almost have been made for television. It’s not the best use of what was reported to have the biggest budget of any Korean movie at that time. The CGI effects are fine, but the action itself, choreographed by Hong Kong’s Ma Yuk-sheng, lacks real impact.
Bichunmoo isn’t a bad film. It’s enjoyable enough, and reasonable well done. Just if you want to watch another swordplay movie in the style of Crouching Tiger it’s not the best place to start.
DVD details
Distributor: Premier Asia (UK)
Hong Kong Legends' new Asian 'catch-all' label is of the exactly the same calibre as it's parent. This two disc set features a superb transfer of the film in widescreen (the Hong Kong release was only full screen), plus a running commentary by Mike Leeder and HK Legends favourite Bey Logan. The second disc includes loads of additional material including documentaries, outtakes and photo galleries. sets.
