The Anarchists (2000)

Good concept, poorly executed.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

fighting with all the means they can get their hands on against the Japanese colonialists. Its very interesting to see a movie about this particular theme, and it was fairly well executed also. Not so much a movie about anarchists, this is about a particular group in Shanghai that went to quite drastic means in order to fight off against the Japanese. A strong point of this movies is that it doesn't judge their actions and makes the characters one-dimensional. Instead we get a feel about what they're fighting for and understand the conflicts amongst themselves. Anarchism is a gentle wind blowing from a wonderful place only to meet the harsh realities it is said in the movie. Here we see this collapse of the dream. It has a good script and has nice style, what I think takes away from the experience is overacting and silly editing in the action sequences. Apart from that it's fine.

Set in the 1920s in Shanghai, this movie follows a group of Korean Anarchists who set off on a terrorism campaign to pressure the Japanese Imperial Government to give up Korea.The action sequences in this movie is a bit overacted in my opinion, but the thought given to the philosophical development of each characters in the movie is quite well done. People, despite sharing the same ideals, may not always share the same views on everything.The movie also shows how ideals and reality are sometimes at odds with each other and how it sometimes forces one to compromise and in the movie, you will find bits and pieces of the philosophy of anarchism as well as the differences between it from another left-wing ideal, Socialism.

This is the first Korean title in my movie collection. Although I wasn't sure when buying the VCD, I finally found out that I didn't make a wrong choice. This film has everything an entertainment needs: strong and cool characters (triad style!), excellent location, costumes, setting, dialogues, story, and action scenes (gunfight: John Woo style, super cool!). Interesting point in shooting scenes, where Seregay charged the enemy's house with automatic pistol, reminding me of Chow Yun Fat in Woo's film. The good thing is, he also ran out of bullets! Drama, action, historical setting mixed excellently by director You Yung Sik, makes this China-Korea movie a good time, also for art film viewers. Highly recommended! Boy, those Koreans sure know how to make good movie!