The noted and famous director Lee Myung returned to the movie scene with a movie entitled “Duelist”. This was a follow up to his previous directorial job in 1999, “Nowhere To Hide” Duelist is a story that delves around during the Chosun dynasty in Korea. It is about a large scale of counterfeiting plan, which will imminently send the whole country in an anarchic situation. Detectives Ahn and Namsoon, his protégé tripped on while they were doing their dangerous jobs as undercover agents of a street fair. The funny thing about this movie was about a masked swordsman portrayed by Kang Dong won who applied his amazing but deceiving skills to onlookers while executing a robbery. Meanwhile, Namsoon (Ha Ji-won) pursued him but found herself drawn closer to the latter, though they had violent encounters one after the other. But love struck their hearts together finding themselves falling for one another.
“Duelist” is a film that seemed to be indescribable. The reason for this was the director was able to come up with breath taking visuals. Both Lee and the cinematographer were able to bring home the bacon with fantastic stylistic stops, the creation of poetry with the use of a shadow and smoke. The viewers must look forward to one interesting and yet amazing scene.
This was the sequence where the female super cop battled one with twin daggers, the other one with a sword, against a stonewall hidden completely in darkness with only their flying off weapons, occasionally gave of some tremendous flashes of light. Isn’t that a wonderful thing to gaze? Likewise, the chasing scenes were made lighter by turning it into a hilarious comedy skit. On the not so good side, the problem in terms of characterization was predominantly evident. Ahn has not been given much juicy role and exposure in the said movie.
Despite of these cinematic inadequacies, the lady character in flashpoint was able to bounce back by the combination of romance through her goddess beauty, likeability and charm had made the movie more exciting to watch because it was able to reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the movie in a harmonious way through Namsoon. Lastly, it was so nice to watch how true love unfolded between two people in the opposite sides. Truly, love is powerful. Overall, “Duelist” is highly recommended for every love struck audience like me.
