Neive Bellamy
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Derry Herrera
Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.
Bessie Smyth
Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.
Scotty Burke
It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review
Tweekums
The early part of this film takes place five hundred years ago when the 'Flute of Prophecy' has been acquired by evil goblins. Three Taoist gods are trying to retrieve it along with two powerful wizards and student wizard Woochi. They are initially successful and the flute is divided into two part so it can't be used for evil again. Shortly afterwards Woochi is framed for the murder of his master so, along with Chorangyi, his dog in human form, he is banished into a picture. Five hundred years later, in modern day South Korea, the Goblins are back so the gods return Woochi, and later Chorangyi from their banishment and together they set off to defeat the goblins and ultimately the person responsible for their release.If you are expecting a serious film then you are likely to be disappointed; yes there is plenty of action but above all it is a comedy. The story is a bit confusing at times, occasionally deliberately so, but ultimately proves to be solid enough. The action scenes are fun in a fantastical way rather than the sort of bone-crunching action that has the viewer wincing. The gags had me chuckling with the sort of humour that is universal rather than requiring the viewer to be steeped in Korean culture. There is a lot of fairly obvious CGI but thankfully it is of a high standard and fitted in with the magical nature of the story. The cast does a solid job; most notably Dong-won Gang and Hae-jin Yoo as Woochi and Chorangyi. Overall this isn't a classic but it is still fun enough if you want a film with a good amount of action and a similar amount of comedy with little in the way of offensive material.These comments are based on watching the film in Korean with English subtitles.
Hrannar Baldursson
I caught this movie on Netflix. Had never heard about it before, and was pleasantly surprised. The characters are deep, the dialogue is fun, the action is fantastic, the story great, and the special effects OK. Most impressive of all was the solid acting, especially during the final fight sequence. Lovely stuff.This movie brings me back in time, into a dark movie theater, at the very end of 'The Matrix', back in 1999. It had such a promising ending, and then they announced sequels that turned out to be poor.Even though 'Woochi' is not a sequel to 'The Matrix', it feels like a movie that successfully went where those sequels didn't go. Highly recommended for those who enjoy fantasy, action, and a bit of time travel.
srm-993-943825
To make a long thought short: I've watched The Sorcerer's Apprentice first, and then the War of the Wizards the same evening. While the Disney flick was plain boring, I really enjoyed the Korean piece. Given, that the CGI is not 100% of the stuff, Hollywood's money can buy, it has all the rest I've missed in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. War of the Wizards has fun story, nice yeah-I'm-a-great-magician-fights (I loved the boss-fight). Summarised: The Sorcerer's Apprentice sticks to it's name: merely an apprentice compared to this lovely crafted Asian movie. Watch it if you like cool magician battles and have an eye and heart for eastern humor.
DaliParton
(spoiler free) I've watched a lot of Korean movies over the years - from the silly (Sex is Zero) to the sublime (Oasis) and enjoyed most of them, even some of the more marginal titles like Spygirl and A.F.R.I.K.A. But for me, and the group of people watching it with me, Jeon Woochi was a big bust.The biggest problem I had with this movie was the terrible pacing, especially in the first 30 minutes of the movie where the timeline was not linear and the director did practically nothing to inform the audience that he had made a jump in time until wrapping up the scene and rejoining the main timeline. Other problems included a major lack of funny - there was so much opportunity for "fish out of water" jokes, but the writers barely even tried. And it wasn't like the comedy was too subtle either, much of the humor in the movie was just too ham-fisted to laugh at.There were also way too many fast cuts during action sequences - it made it difficult to enjoy the biggest feature of the movie: the excellent CGI. The director barely gives the audience a chance to focus on the contents of a shot before cutting to a new camera angle. I recognize these fast cuts are a modern Hollywood style, but it is still a terrible one to emulate.The story itself was, as expected, fairly simple. But even then, the telling of it was too convoluted - due mainly to the confusing timeline.I haven't given any examples to illustrate my criticism because I wanted to avoid spoilers as much as possible but still provide a counter-point to the misleadingly high rating (7.0 as I write this) and the other 5 or so reviews which all gave the movie exceptional scores. It was on the basis of that rating and the other reviews that I purchased the korean blu-ray and would strongly recommend that no one else waste their time or money the way I did. I suggest watching the older Arahan which has a similar "wizardry in the modern city" plot. I had a lot more fun watching Arahan despite its flaws.Also, watch out for the korean blu-ray. It is poorly mastered - the black levels are elevated making the picture look washed out and hazy unless you have a fancy display that can correct the problem.