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Movie review: Noryang: Deadly Sea
🕑 Added 2024-05-30 16:00:13 +0000 UTCAbout time eh?
Since the Blu-ray only just came out recently and I'd like to strike while the iron is still hot and put the review out as fast as possible, this article will follow the format of my Battle of Jiksan article, that is, an update-as-I-write approach to this article, which will go live in my blog as soon as it is completed. I will still write additional contents that will remain exclusive for my Patrons in other posts.
The sequel to The Admiral: Roaring Currents and Hansan: Rising Dragon, and the epic finale of Yi Sun-sin trilogy, is finally released digitally! Being the Imjin War enthusiast that I am, of course I wouldn't pass up the chance to review what director Kim Han-min has in store for his audience!
Noryang: Deadly Sea revolves around the titular Battle of Noryang, the last major battle of Imjin War and the climax of the entire war. This makes it a much easier battle to adapt into a good story/movie, which allows the movie to be largely (albeit not completely) free of the numerous narrative problems that plagued Hansan: Rising Dragon. This is not to say Noryang: Deadly Sea is superior to its prequel, however. In many ways, it is worse.
(Major spoilers ahead, be warned!)
Production issues
Production issues are the least of the movie's many problems, so I am going to mention them first. My first complaint about Noryang: Deadly Sea is that the Chinese language in this movie is atrociously cringe to a native speaker, to the point that I must pause the movie to clear my head every time anyone speaks any Chinese. To be fair, this isn't really a production issue per se (all actors are Korean so it's understandable that they can't speak Chinese), although the production team really should consider hiring some Chinese actors or just dub over the Chinese part.
Personal gripe with the language aside, there are definitely some pacing issues with the movie. This is particularly egregious during a scene where the titular character, Yi Sun-shin (이순신 or 李舜臣) suddenly sees hallucination of his deceased son, calls out the names of his comrades one by one as if bidding farewell to them, and vomits blood out of nowhere——BEFORE he was fatally shot by a Japanese gunner. I have a sneaking suspicion that executive meddling forced the director to pad out the length of his movie to the detriment of storytelling. In any case, pacing issues will likely be fixed if the director later releases a Redux/director's cut version of the movie like he did for Hansan: Rising Dragon.
Thirdly, remember that I said I enjoyed the build-up portion of Hansan: Rising Dragons for all the wrong reasons? Well, the build-up portion of Noryang: Deadly Sea is largely free of the narrative issues of its prequel, but this ironically means that it now bores me to death, as I no longer have any reason, not even wrong one, to enjoy this convoluted mess. I am not even sure if the flashback and minor plot of Yi Sun-sin's dead son is really necessary when the central theme of the story isn't that of personal vendetta, but "to end the war on our terms we must pursue the enemy to the very edge of the (Japanese) archipelago.". Speaking of which, I am well aware this that this is a nationalistic movie and all, but surely such vindictive message can't be the right moral to convey to the audience?
Sea of inferno: Battle of Noryang on the silver screen
Historical accounts of Battle of Noryang are rather light on finer details, which give plenty of room for creative liberty. For example, there's nothing in the historical records that describes the Koreans deploying hwacha during this battle, or the Japanese using captured cannons to sink turtle ships, but there's nothing to suggest they DIDN'T either. Thus, free from historical restrictions such as Yi Sun-sin's famous Hak Ik-jin (鶴翼陣), the director was able to let his imagination run wild, and I commend him for delivering such blood-pumping battle sequences. Moreover, barring a few exceptions all characters acted in a mostly logical and coherent manner, and the battle tactics and counter-tactics sensible and convincing, both of which make for an enjoyable watching experience. Regrettably, later portion of the naval action was overshadowed by overly drawn-out, soap opera-esque montages of Yi Sun-sin's final moments and death, although this doesn't detract from the fact that it was great while it lasted.
Nevertheless, despite the enjoyable battle scenes, there are indeed some exceptions, or one might say plot holes, that detract from the overall story. Chief among them are the war fleet of Konishi Yukinaga (小西行長), Chen Lin acting out of character, and the battle that ends at dawn. They will be elaborated below:
Konishi Yukinaga's pristine war fleet
The story begins with Konishi Yukinaga holed up inside Suncheon Castle due to a joint Ming-Joseon naval blockade, with supply running so low his soldiers were on the verge of resorting to cannibalism. If that is the case, then where did he find/hide such a massive fleet of warships? And why didn't Yi Sun-sin do something about these ships before they become a problem, i.e. destroy them during the blockade?
Chen Lin acting out of character
In this film, Ming admiral Chen Lin is portrayed as a calculating coward that took bribes and spent the better part of the film trying to distance himself from Yi Sun-sin's war to avoid more bloodshed. Yet during a crucial moment he suddenly ordered Ming navy to press the attack seriously, only to end up with his own flagship boarded by the Japanese. This abrupt change of mind is entirely out of character for Chen Lin's risk-averse portrayal up until that point, and it appears that the director forcibly handed him an idiot ball for no reason other than to set up a "Yi Sun-sin heroically save the Ming admiral from danger" moment.
The battle that ends at dawn
Having the epic struggle to be over by daybreak gives a nice touch of symbolism, signifying the nightmare that terrorised Korea for the past seven years is finally over, and new hope arise. Historically, the turning point of Battle of Noryang also happened around dawn (although the battle itself continued well into the morning), so that checks out. So why is this a problem?
Well, the time when the battle ended isn't a problem. It's only when Yi Sun-sin explicitly set a time limit that he must defeat the Japanese before dawn, Shimazu Yoshihiro became increasingly agitated as daybreak drew near, and Konishi Yukinaga acted as if he was too late after arriving at the scene by dawn, that it become problematic. Why? Because while the battle happens to be over by dawn, there isn't any particular reason that it couldn't, or shouldn't, go on for longer. In essence, by racing against this arbitrary time limit, the characters both good and bad are making decisions based on out-of-story knowledge they couldn't possibly know.
As to why serious plot holes like this can crop up in an otherwise fairly coherent story, this brings me to my next point...
Stolen shine: a sad attempt at ego-boosting
At its core, Noryang: Deadly Sea is a nationalistic flick under the guise of historical movie. Attempts to shape the titular hero Yi Sun-sin into a saint among men, and to a lesser extend make the Koreans look good and heroic while everyone else either bad or helpless, permeate throughout the story, dialogues, and character portrayals, some overt, other indirect and subtle. Naturally, in such work historical realities are more of a hindrance than a boon. They are inconvenient truth that must be distorted to serve the narrative, not the other way around.
To illustrate, in a secret letter Konishi Yukinaga warned Shimazu Yoshihiro that Yi Sun-sin might counter-invade Japan after the war. This obviously untrue statement may appear to be just another off-handed chest thumping to make Yi Sun-sin look good and Joseon Kingdom appear more powerful than it really was (which is usually par of the course for a nationalistic movie but relatively harmless, although not in this case), however it actually underpins much of the history distortions that shape the movie's story, and the plot holes that come with such alterations.
You see, in the historical version of Battle of Noryang, Konishi Yukinaga simply packed up and slipped away from Suncheon Castle while the battle raged on. However, in order to glorify Yi Sun-sin, the director made him a dangerous commander that the Japanese simply could not ignore (even after they lost the war), necessitating the antagonists to hatch a nefarious plot to defeat him, which in turn necessitating Konishi Yukinaga to conjure a war fleet out of thin air to threaten Yi Sun-sin with. Thus, a plot hole came into being.
Likewise, that Chen Lin was the supreme commander that led the allied navy to victory during Battle of Noryang, and Ming navy actually did most of the legworks during the battle, are all inconvenient historical facts to the director's story that must be written off/away. There's a reason why Battle of Noryang played out so differently from Yi Sun-sin's other naval victories, for instance the unusually heavy use of incendiary weapons, little aversion to boarding combat, and the main artillery being Chinese Hu Dun Pao (虎蹲砲) rather than the usual Joseon Chongtong (총통 or 銃筒). But nope, can't have that, Yi Sun-sin must hoard all the spotlights! So Chen Lin is portrayed as a coward that tried to avoid battle at all cost, while Chinese Huo Qiu (火毬) and Pen Tong (噴筒) are being replaced by unimaginative oil pots hand-thrown by Joseon troops then ignited with fire arrorws.
Had Chen Lin not been portrayed as a coward, the scene where his ship was boarded by the Japanese and he was saved by Yi Sun-sin would've flowed far more naturally. Unfortunately, the director wanted to have his cake and eat it too, so he forced Chen Lin to abruptly change from a coward to a Leeroy Jenkins in the span of like two scenes, so that Yi Sun-sin can look good by heroically saving his inept Chinese ally from danger, plot hole be damned. Historically, it was Yi Sun-sin's ship that got surrounded by the Japanese first, then Chen Lin charged in to save Yi Sun-sin, only to cause the Japanese switch target and surround him instead. The freed Yi Sun-sin then returned to help Chen Lin, and the two fought side by side until dawn. Alas, such moving tale of fire-forged camaraderie, butchered into a plot hole-ridden ego boosting.
And what about the dawn?
By itself, various characters in the movie subconsciously racing against an arbitrary time limit is a relatively minor problem, more of a director oversight or dialogue slip than a story-ruining plot hole. However, the fact that such oversight can exist in the first place shows that the director probably did his historical homework—but chose to discard historical events that inconvenience his narrative anyway. Why? Because one notable event did take place at dawn—Deng Zilong (鄧子龍) came in gun blazing and saved the day!
Deng Zilong, an old soldier by the time of his death (he used to be a commander but was demoted to the rank of common soldier before entering Korea), was the last of the major characters to join the fray, but the first to set fire to Japanese warships. His success prompted Chen Lin and other Ming ships to follow suit with their own incendiary weapons, and this was what caused the Japanese to finally break ranks and flee. Unfortunately, his ship was hit by friendly fire during pursuit, and the ensuing chaos allowed Japanese troops to board the vessel and kill nearly all hands aboard. Due to Deng Zilong's low rank and relative obscurity, the Japanese didn't realise they had killed someone of significance until centuries later, so no one at the time claimed credit for his death.
Bah, can't have that either. There's no way the director will allow another heroic sacrifice to detract from Yi Sun-sin's own, so nothing in particular happened at dawn in the film (despite everyone keeping track of the time limit). Well, nothing except Yi Sun-sin suddenly saw a vision of his deceased son who prompted him to start beating the war drum, and this inspired the good guys to fight harder while inflicting a psychological meltdown on the villain Shimazu Yoshihiro so horrid he ran to cower in his room and literally start vomiting (no really).
As for Deng Zilong, he was reduced by director to what can be described as "Yi Sun-sin's believer", an inferior who was "converted" and was so devout to the hero that he put him above all others and strove to emulate him, going so far as to confronting his own superior and attacking without order. Too bad the hero's imitator is not the hero himself, so Deng Zilong died an unceremonious death without accomplishing anything.
Moreover, as if Deng Zilong's death still wasn't enough to rub it in, the director then decided to kill off minor Ming commander Chen Chan (陳蠶) to reemphasise Chinese incompetence, and make another minor Ming commander Shen Li (沈理) undergo some kind of foxhole conversion (except he didn't convert to Christianity but to Yi Sun-sin), and found redemption in valiant death—better to die fighting like a Korean than live like a coward! Never mind that both of them survived the war, and Chen Chan even stayed in Korea for two more years (he returned to China in 1600). Because why let history get in the way of the stirring tall tale of our lord and saviour Yi Sun-sin?
I know, Noryang: Deadly Sea is a nationalistic movie, so some measures of embellishment and glorifications of the titular hero are inevitable. But doing it in such blatantly denigrating manner, even to allies, it just seems so uncouth...tactless and petty.
Comments
GreatMingMilitary
The movie is worth a watch if only for the war spectacles, but if there's a redux version in the future with better pacing, it's better to watch that instead.
Angus MacDonald
I'll probably watch it anyway, but it's always sad to see history that writes itself fumbled at the goal line
