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Since early childhood, they are the closest friends, now would it
surprise you that when grown up, Jinha (Shin Hyeon-jun) & Sullie (Kim
Hee-seon) become lovers ?
But fate of course has other plans, when her mother dies, her father,
the powerful Mongol general Taruga (Kim Hak-cheol), relocates her in
another city & wants to marry her off to Chungwan (Jeong Jin-yeong).
It comes worse when Jinha finds out he is the last survivor of the once
powerful family Yu, which was killer by Sullie's family - & it seems
that the Mongols are now after his Bichun swordfighting manual ...
However, eventually Jinha sets out to meet Sullie again, & on the
way makes friends with Chungwan, with neither man knowing who the other
is. Eventually, he learns about Sullie's marriage (which is to be later
that day), & kidnaps her ... Soon enough though he is stopped by
general Taruga & his army, but Chungwan offers him a fair fight about
Sullie - which Jinha wins, but he refuses to kill Chungwan - when all of a
sudden, the general has his archers shoot Jinha ... having seen this,
Sullie agrees to marry Chungwan - with a broken heart.
But Jinha isn't dead, a simple farmer has found his injured body &
nursed him back to health - but it takes 10 years before Jinha is ready to
have his revenge.
First he singlehandedly kills the general, then he, with an army of
rebels, takes the palace where Sullie's father-by-law resides by storm,
forcing this man into suicide. Sullie fights for her life against the
rebel hordes, but is saved of course by Jinha - but when Jinha finds out
she has a son, Sung (Hyep Bang), he takes her & the boy as mere
prisoners.
Eventually though, the boy escapes, & Sullie begs for mercy for
him, even telling Jinha that Sung is actually his son & not Chungwan's
... which Jinha doesn't believe ...
Sung meanwhile is saved from Jinha's soldiers by a masked stranger, who
doesn't only kill his pursuers & bring him to safety, he also agrees
to teach him in swordfighting so he can, one day, defeat Jinha, who Sung
thinks is his mortal enemy. What he doesn't know of course is that the
masked stranger is in fact Jinha ...
Eventually though, traitors among Jinha's own ranks lay a fire which
kills Sullie, & they poison him & torture him to give up the
Bichun manual ...
Sullie however didn't really die but was saved by her own brother Lai
(Jang Dong-jik), & with a few rebels who are still loyal to Jinha, she
manages to free him & suck the blood out of his body.
Jinha now has the task of telling his son that he, the man whom Sung
hates the most, is actually his father, & then he has to face Chungwan
(who has been absent during most of the story) in duel over Sullie ... a
duel that ends with Jinha breaking down because the earlier poisoning took
effect again, & Chungwan running into an ambush laid for Jinha by
opponents in his own ranks. However with his dieing breath, Chungwan
offers Jinha his friendship once more.
To avenge Chungwan, Jinha goes after his assassins, but somehow Sullie
gets caught up in the ensueing fight & is killed. After he has
defeated all his enemies, Jinha takes the girl in his arms, & pushes
the sword in her back that has killed her just a little further so it can
kill him too & they can be reunited for all eternity ...
Bichunmoo is certainly not free of kitsch, as much is sure,
& despite its tremendous success in Korea it is certainly not an all
that special martial arts/swordsplay film. That said however, the film
also has its redeeming values, like a succession of exciting &
well-staged fight-scenes that often end with opponents been torn apart,
good imagery & camerawork, and excellent storytelling that makes the
over-convoluted plot easy to follow.
There are definitely worse ways (& worse martial arts filcks) to
kill almost 2 hours.
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