Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Troll_Bait]

This is month-old news, but Mythbusters brought it back to mind.

Last month they played the movie 신기전 (The Divine Weapon) at Yongsan's CGV theater with English sub-titles.

I thought the movie was utter crap. The love story was so silly that I heard Koreans in the theater laughing with embarrassment. The final scene depicted a great battle that I could find no historical trace of on the Internet. During said battle, the shin-gi-jeon was deployed. If you want to see the kinds of the projectiles the real shin-gi-jeon used, look at this picture (thanks to Bluelake). In the movie, however, the shin-gi-jeon launched an intercontinental ballistic missile, fire and smoke billowing out of its rear, before impacting the battlefield with a small nuclear explosion, complete with a mushroom cloud, that obliterated the enemy army of hundreds. I'm not kidding.

When the Chinese see this movie, they're going to be pissed, because the shin-gi-jeon is based upon an earlier Chinese invention, the fire arrow. Even the nefarious Chinese spies in the movie, when looking at the pilfered blueprints, exclaim, "It's like our fire arrow, but more powerful!"

I was really disappointed because I had looked forward to this movie.

[bluelake]

I haven't seen the movie, yet, but will probably rent it on DVD. I wouldn't expect a Korean movie that is meant to catch the eye of more than a Korean crowd to be historically accurate--it's Hallryuwood, I'm sure (kind of like what they did with Hanbando)

The 신기전 was the rocket arrow itself, while the cart was the 화차. Some of the rocket arrows had explosive heads, while others were just propelled arrows.

My nephew recorded the Mythbusters episode about the rocket arrow (and confirmed that my screen credit was a fraction of a second in length) and will send the file to me. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

[seoulsucker]

Typical Korean fare...decent action, sappy overblown love story, and about 30 minutes too long.

All the "perfect design" BS stroking the collective nationalist ego was a bit much as well.

[Troll_Bait]

Bluelake:

Were there any large-scale battles between the King Sejong-era Chosun dynasty and China? Because they depict one in the movie, with hundreds, if not thousands, of soldiers involved. In the movie, of course, the Koreans were seriously outnumbered but triumphed thanks to the nuclear missile launched by the hwa-cha.

[bluelake]

[Troll_Bait]