Rhapsodies

I’ve been a fan of the Youtube channel History Buffs and have been pointed towards several good movies by it. Most recently I was pointed towards a new film about a great naval battle against incredible odds. From there I just had to do was watch films about great naval victories.

Anyway, the film that History Buffs recommended was Kim Han-min’s Admiral: Roaring Currents that tells the story of the Japanese Invasion of Korea and how they were finally defeated by the Korean Admiral Yi Sun-sin (played by the great Choi Min-sik ) in the  Battle of Myeongnyang. The Korean forces have been nearly defeated and Yi’s small fleet of 12 ships is vastly outnumbered by the Japanese. But through a combination of discipline, knowledge of the waters of the Myeongnyang strait and mounted cannons, he wins in one of the greatest victories in naval history.

This was a really cool movie. It starts slow, getting started. Letting us know exactly what kind of odds the Korean forces are up against having lost most of their navy in previous battles. It occurs to me that a lot was left out in the backstory but I assume Yi Sun-sin is enough of a national Korean hero that a lot of his biography is taken for granted, like George Washington in any film about the revolutionary war.

The actual battle of Myeongnyang, which makes up nearly half of the film is truly spectacular making you really feel like you’re there. (Though while they looked pretty cool I didn’t see the point of the “fish eye” view shots)

A lot of this film reminded me quite a bit of John Woo’s Red Cliff, complete with ships catching fire (though in this case, it was just a set back)

Since I started with a great eastern naval victory, I figured I’d head back for a similar naval victory here in the west, and the best one I could think of was the Spanish Armada. Regrettably, there were not nearly as many films on the topic as I expected. I ended up with Shekhar Kapur’s sequel to his very successful film Elizabeth, Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

Elizabeth ( Cate Blanchett) is secure in her role as queen of England. However she is surrounded by conspiracy everywhere, led by the figurehead of her cousin, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots(Samantha Morton), and in the background, Philip II of Spain is building a great armada of ships and is waiting for just the right excuse to use it to attack the protestant upstart.

This was a pretty fun film. Like Kapur’s first film it’s quite stylized and plays fast and loose with a lot of the history. (The biggest example was giving much of the deeds of Sir Francis Drake to Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen)) The drama’s good with a good performance from Kate Blanchet. Even though it’s buildup to the Armada was the main point of the film, the climax of the Armada was pretty much an afterthought, with just enough flash to tell us it was impressive and that the English were very, very lucky.