Musical Mondays Week 106 Swing Kids

[Cameron H. 23786]

Slip into the past for some Modern Love.

We watched:

[grudlian. 4725]

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.

[tomspanks 9039]

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+.  

[tomspanks 9039]

13 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

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.

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.

[grudlian. 4725]

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.

22 minutes ago, tomspanks said:

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+.  

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.

[tomspanks 9039]

49 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

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'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.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

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.)

[tomspanks 9039]

23 minutes ago, Cinco DeNio said:

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.)

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.

[Cameron H. 23786]

One of my favorite bits was the moment where the dudes are in the tent and one of them is like, "Don't talk about the food you want to eat or about your past, otherwise you'll be the first to die." Then they all proceed to do just that and are immediately killed. I like meta moments like that. The entirety of Saving Private Ryan can be mapped out this way.

  

[Cameron H. 23786]

6 hours ago, tomspanks said:

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 think this would work better for me on a second watch. "Modern Love" was introduced kind of gradually, so when it kicked in, I was ready for it. When the first slide on the guitar hits for "Free as a Bird" hit, I found it pretty jarring. If I knew it was coming, though, I think I would appreciate it more.

[Cam Bert 8145]

I'll have more thoughts later but again I seem to be in consensus that I found it bloated with lots of greatstuff and some okay-ish stuff. The one thing that got me was the whole subplot with his old friend arriving and then suddenly riling everybody up. There was some good stuff that came out of it but largely it seemed unnecessary. If the introduction of Sam Sik came sooner and in place of that or there were just more violent outbursts through out I think it would have tightened the movie and not created this weird pause in the dance and the story. The other thing that got to me, and I get this is a South Korean movie for South Koreans but couldn't they get an American to play the Captain? His accent was not so passible. I mean with the exception of Jackson lots of the accents were big.

[tomspanks 9039]

1 hour ago, Cameron H. said:

One of my favorite bits was the moment where the dudes are in the tent and one of them is like, "Don't talk about the food you want to eat or about your past, otherwise you'll be the first to die." Then they all proceed to do just that and are immediately killed. I like meta moments like that. The entirety of Saving Private Ryan can be mapped out this way.

They should've added - don't talk about your future plans.  Right before the Swing Kids go on stage, the guy's like, right after this dance number I'm going straight to see my wife...

1 hour ago, Cameron H. said:

I think this would work better for me on a second watch. "Modern Love" was introduced kind of gradually, so when it kicked in, I was ready for it. When they first slide on the guitar hits for "Free as a Bird" hit, I found it pretty jarring. If I knew it was coming, though, I think I would appreciate it more.

Oh you have a point.  I lost it on my second watch.  

1 hour ago, Cam Bert said:

The other thing that got to me, and I get this is a South Korean movie for South Koreans but couldn't they get an American to play the Captain? His accent was not so passible. I mean with the exception of Jackson lots of the accents were big.

Are you talking about the guy in charge of the camp, the general?  

[grudlian. 4725]

1 hour ago, Cam Bert said:

The other thing that got to me, and I get this is a South Korean movie for South Koreans but couldn't they get an American to play the Captain? His accent was not so passible. I mean with the exception of Jackson lots of the accents were big.

Boy, do I have some bad news for you about non-Americans in American movies!

[grudlian. 4725]

This isn't a criticism of the movie, but of Amazon. I put on subtitles for the movie and they didn't subtitle any of the English. I had real trouble understanding the Koreans when they spoke English. I could get the gist of it but couldn't get 100% of almost any sentence the entire movie. I don't see why they didn't have subs for the entire movie just the spoken Korean.

[Cam Bert 8145]

2 hours ago, tomspanks said:

Are you talking about the guy in charge of the camp, the general?  

Yes, Mr. Roberts. When he first started talking I thought he was British then he was somewhere between British and American.

 

2 hours ago, grudlian. said:

Boy, do I have some bad news for you about non-Americans in American movies!

Haha Fair enough. Some people do it just fine, but others... why couldn't Doctor Strange be British?

[Cameron H. 23786]

6 minutes ago, Cam Bert said:

why couldn't Doctor Strange be British?

Because canonically he’s from Nebraska!!! It’s integral to his character! 

[Cam Bert 8145]

1 minute ago, Cameron H. said:

Because canonically he’s from Nebraska!!! It’s integral to his character! 

How could I forget his catchphrase

"By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth, don't mess with this cornhusker!"

[tomspanks 9039]

12 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

Yes, Mr. Roberts. When he first started talking I thought he was British then he was somewhere between British and American.

I didn't notice his accent at all!

Btw Cam the actor playing Ki Su is in a K-pop band and his stage name is D.O.  As in...

[tomspanks 9039]

Do you guys think Jackson eventually made it to Okinawa?

[Cameron H. 23786]

9 minutes ago, tomspanks said:

Do you guys think Jackson eventually made it to Okinawa?

I...don’t think so.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

13 hours ago, Cam Bert said:

How could I forget his catchphrase

"By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth, don't mess with this cornhusker!"

"What's your name Dr. Strange?"

"Lincoln. Lincoln Nebraska. Dr. Strange is my stage name."

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

48 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

I...don’t think so.

I thought he did but your response makes sense.  I was hoping at least he stayed on the original base but now I...don't think so.

[Cameron H. 23786]

36 minutes ago, Cinco DeNio said:

I thought he did but your response makes sense.  I was hoping at least he stayed on the original base but now I...don't think so.

To clarify, I think the ending is meant to be a huge bummer, so if they wanted to give Jackson some kind of a happy ending, they would have. There would have been a picture or a woman with him at the end. The feeling I get from the end of the movie is that this was the first time he had left America since he was discharged.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

10 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

To clarify, I think the ending is meant to be a huge bummer, so if they wanted to give Jackson some kind of a happy ending, they would have. There would have been a picture or a woman with him at the end. The feeling I get from the end of the movie is that this was the first time he had left America since he was discharged.

I'm confused.  Is he alive at the end?  Where is he going in the helicopter? I thought that was him heading to Okinawa.

[tomspanks 9039]

2 hours ago, Cameron H. said:

I...don’t think so.

So...what do you think happened to Pan Rae's siblings and the guy's wife?