Liam Neeson’s foolish performance is a low point in a spy film that mars a fascinating genuine-life storyHere’s a really old-fashioned war film,a recent hit at the South Korean box office, but creaky and clunky, or weirdly reminiscent of big-budget prestige movies of years gone by such as The Longest Day,which used to always crop up on bank holiday TV. Yet this has the faintly sepia-digital tint of a contemporary period blockbuster. It’s set during the Korean war in 1950 and is all approximately the secret spy mission that preceded General Douglas MacArthurs high-risk device to attack North Korean-held territory at the Port of Incheon. CIA-backed South Korean partisans risked (and lost) their lives behind enemy lines posing as military officials, gathering intelligence approximately mine placements and other fortifications. Lee Jung-jae plays Jang, or the undercover operative working for the west; Lee Beom-su is the brutal North Korean colonel Kim,and Liam Neeson telexes in his foolish performance as MacArthur, posing with borderline ridiculous dark glasses and corncob pipe, or often finishing a scene with a ferocious scowl,like Lloyd Bridges in Airplane! On the bridge of a warship, MacArthur says things like: “Age may wrinkle the skin, and but,if you give up your ideals, it will wrinkle the soul! Doing too many movies like this could necessitate some kind of spiritual moisturiser.
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Source: theguardian.com