Sword in the Moon (2003)

"Nothing changes. Nothing."

Sword in the Moon was a 2003 Korean attempt at a wuxia complete with running on rooftops. Because even in a wig and sword drama there has to be a childhood connection, the two main characters were blood brothers who trained at the same school but ended up on different sides of a coup.

Yun Gyu Yeop has the nickname “The Butcher” and serves at the pleasure of the king. This king stole the throne during a bloody rebellion. Ministers involved with the coup begin being brutally murdered. It doesn’t take long before Yun realizes that the two people involved were his friends from another life. Choi Ji Hwan and Shi Yeong have nothing left to live for except their revenge after the king’s men and Yun killed everyone they cared about.

Sword in the Moon had the basis for an entertaining wuxia. The filming and editing let me down greatly. The director overused the shaky and nausea inducing camera style as well as too many blurry slow-mo fights. The film jumped back and forth in time, introducing characters briefly and rapidly and killing many of them off just as quickly. New players entered the game and then disappeared. This film might have benefited from telling its story more linearly. The main characters were not well developed and relied on the old friends/brothers to enemies trope. At one point it seemed Shi and Yun might have had romantic feelings for each other, yet it was with Choi that Yun road horseback in the moonlight through the tall grasses as grand romantic music played in the background. It honestly felt like Director Kim was told to cut 30 minutes off of the film and he stitched together an odd patchwork with a chisel hoping no one would notice the characters that came and went without reason.

If you are squeamish, it’s important to note that there were numerous beheadings and dismemberments. There were a few fights that weren’t ruined by the shaky, slow-mo camera. As the characters were given little emotional depth, except for Yun, it was hard to care what happened to any of them. Even the traitorous ministers and king lacked any menace or interesting details personally or historically. Sword in the Moon wasn’t terrible, but I would have better enjoyed watching an old Hwang Jang Lee kung fu movie instead.

16 January 2025

Trigger warnings: beheadings and dismemberments

A scene with NUMEROUS snakes

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Sword in the Moon is one of the first ever Korean sword flicks I have watched. I was attracted to the film as I heard it was based on a popular comic. I'll try to do this review without spoilers. What I loved about this film is the vibrant cinematography, colours and action sequences. The soundtrack is to die for. Compliments the movie well. The story is pretty standard though. In a time of chaos, two friends who learn martial arts and sword fighting go on separate paths. Yoon Gyu-yup going to the dark side of becoming a government official and Choi Ji-hwan becoming an assassin out for revenge. The ending though has my head scratching. Something I have felt at the end of most Korean sword movies that I've watched following this one. It's like the heroes deliberately go out of their way to make poor decisions that lead to sad endings, LOL. At the end of the movie, I could have cited many different choices that our heroes could have made... I'll leave it at that. Is it worth a watch? definitely yes due to it's awesome soundtrack and the way the movie is presented. Is it the best movie ever? Nope...

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