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I assumed it had to be fake. I figured any POWs dancing would have been soldiers forcing them to do it at gunpoint for cruel entertainment. Which, I guess the movie is doing in a roundabout way. Pretty much all of this. I really loved a lot of sequences in this. The Modern Love really stuck out but that might be my love of that song already.

I rewatched it for MM and I didn't love it as much as the first time. Is it just me or are the transitions kind of abrupt between scenes? Like the Modern Love sequence - it's awesome! But by the end of that scene I couldn't remember why Ki Su was in the dance hall by himself and it was jarring that it ended with the girl doing a face plant. And they kind of recycled that from the Chinese guy's audition from the earlier scene - which was one of the highlights tbh. There were lots of entertaining scenes like that but overall the string of scenes didn't fit together sometimes. Some of the scenes gave me whiplash. One minute I'm chuckling at a silly slapstick joke and the next minute I'm horrified by the blood and violence. But still, there were some fun dance sequences and soundtrack was A+.

The premise was that Ki Su was blamed for the damage to the hall at "Bible Study" and his punishment was to go fix up the place. The other prisoners at the communist camp didn't know he was dancing there.

Slip into the past for some Modern Love. We watched:

I've been fixated on Hunky Dory, but I think I'm gonna switch to Let's Dance soon... My second favorite song from the movie was Free As A Bird. I held it together even when the group was shot (hope that's not a spoiler), but when they started playing that song over the credits and the group pics, I lost it.

I'm with those who don't remember this version of Love's Labour's Lost being a particularly bad movie. I guess it's a weird concept and not really a great movie, but I wouldn't have considered it HDTGM material. Honestly, I didn't really consider any of these Shakespeare adaptations mentioned here especially bad, including the Mel Gibson or Ethan Hawke Hamlets. They all have their interesting elements. I guess I've never really hated any Shakespeare movie that used the original language.

The POW camp was real, but the dancing was not. In the final scene, they made it a point to show that the film camera was shot so no footage survived lol.

I agreed with Cameron's review on Letterboxd. This felt like less than the sum of its parts. There is a lot of great stuff in here. I like hearing about the Korean War from a Korean perspective. I like the dancing. I like the performances. I like the cinematography. But this didn't totally work for me. Part of that is a general dislike for movies set in tragic circumstances that start as comedies or light comedy then suddenly turn melodramatic halfway through. It feels manipulative in the wrong way. Does anyone know if there are any stories remotely similar to the story of this movie? I'm certainly no expert on the Korean War but I've never heard about a dance crew in Korea POW camps.

Was Ki Su the only one who had to sneak off to dance? I can't imagine the other POWs being happy about fellow prisoners heading off to form a dance team. I wish the dad had run like Ki Su told him to. I felt like Ki Su was going to run at the end when he jumped through the curtain. Unfortunately he was stopped and the ending happened. (I don't want to talk about the ending. That tore me up like few movies have.)

It's just soooooo over-the-top and heavy-handed. And the final scene, with Ian/Richard screaming across the battlefield in a panzer screaming, "A horse! A horse!" -- it's unintentional comedy gold.

I don't mind it either but that's probably because we had to watch it in high school. I think that for sure helped me appreciate it as flawed as it is. At it's core I think it was a neat way to adapt it, but yes it's pretty bad. Still I would take it over a lot of the Romeo and Juliet knock offs.

Branagh's Hamlet set an impossibly high bar I think, including for himself. I can't think of a better film version of Shakespeare. As for Emma Thompson, she is every bit as talented as Branagh, and I feel it unnecessary to take sides over their long-ended relationship. It's a shame that their personal relationship ended in a way that they felt no longer able to work together.

I didn’t hate the Gibson Hamlet as much as I thought I would. I heard about Hawke’s Cymbeline about a year ago. From the description, it seems to be about a Son’s of Anarchy type motorcycle gang. I’m curious.

Sounds like everyone has forgotten Mel Gibson's Hamlet. This made me curious so I went googling bad Shakespeare adaptations and this page has some pretty interesting suggestions, most of which I had not heard of (Cymbeline? Also with Ethan Hawke?).

I don't know ... Ethan Hawke's Hamlet was pretty bad. And if there's one that is truly worthy of this show, I'd say it was Ian McKellan's Richard III.

I found this YouTube video by film critic Lindsay Ellis helpful. Incredibly proud to have know Elaine Stritch.

I would love for Conan to interview Sacha Baron Cohen on the podcast. I'm sure it would be brilliantly insightful and funny. Thanks for the show!

I would like Conan to have his wife on an episode. I would also like: Steve Carrell, Jim Carrey, John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, James Franco, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon.

Ever since I heard Conan mention his scientist Dad (I'm a scientist myself), I was curious about him. Now I've heard and read more about him and I really want Dr O'Brien on the podcast!

CONAN'S DAD: Dr. Thomas Francis O'Brien, MD I'm an MD/PhD student and am a huge fam of Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. We're really swamped with COVID-19 patients these days. However, Conan brings a smile to many of the medical students, residents, and attending physicians when they have a chance to listen. Major thanks to Conan for keeping us sane. I only recently realized that I grew up knowing about Dr. Thomas Francis O'Brien's work on multidrug bacterial resistance years before I started watching the show. Conan's dad, Dr. Thomas Francis O'Brien, is such a pioneering figure and I hope Conan could have his dad on the podcast sometime soon to chat about COVID-19 and infectious disease things. I think it would make a lot of medical and science people happy to hear from him with Conan. Thanks!

Greetings from Brazil! Please please please, do a Steve Carell and a Terry Crews episode. Besides, some science episodes, with the likes of like Neil deGrasse Tyson or Brian Greene, would be awesome too. I created a Earwolf account just to comment here hahahaha!

Robert Downey should skip the "only doing fucking awful cash grabs" portion of his career that Eddie Murphy went through (and is hopefully finally out with the absolutely amazing My Name is Dolemite) and just be picky about what he wants to do. I cant imagine it was a small amount of money he made from his run on the Marvel movies, I feel like he has a bit more freedom than starring in lazy shit like this.

I want to support what other posters have offered on this thread in terms of inviting more women to participate. Comedy writing has been a tremendously sexist terrain. What Conan and other podcasts (like Marc Maron) perpetuate is a nostalgic view of the 80s and 90s as a kind of golden age for young white men, whether in the Simpsons writing room or in the comedy clubs. I am so glad for Sona's presence on the show and would hope for more of a balance with women guests. The other major limitation for Conan's show is race. Wanda Sykes and Michelle Obama are the only African Americans included, and perhaps Malcolm Gladwell since he identifies as multiracial. Chapelle? Chris Rock? Tracey Morgan? Does Conan only want to be friends with people like him -- straight white men? And aside from the friendship premise of the show, whose work does the show promote? Whose voices are heard? What values and investments of the past does the show perpetuate?

Sorry for putting my politics into this. But I'd like to hear a interview with Andrew Yang. I know this is probably just a show for entertainers to talk to Conan but I'd like to quantify how the mainstream press constantly sees and treats his campaign as a joke and under represents him like others polling less or equal to his numbers like Mayor Pete and Beto. Check out #YangMediaBlackoutt on twitter. He's a smart dude and does great interviews like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87M2HwkZZcw