Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.5

Masquerade Blu-ray Movie Review

Every Inch a King

Reviewed by Michael Reuben July 10, 2013

Masquerade is the international title of a successful South Korean film originally called Gwang-hae: The Man Who Became King. With technical accomplishments of which any major studio could be proud and performances so effective that they transcend subtitling, the film sold millions of tickets and swept the 2012 Grand Bell Awards (South Korea's equivalent of the Oscars) in fifteen categories, including best picture, best director for Choo Chang-min and best actor for Lee Byung-hun (star of I Saw the Devil and best known here as Storm Shadow in the G.I. Joe films).

Gwang-hae was the fifteenth king of the Joseon Dynasty that ruled Korea for almost five centuries. Masquerade imagines what might have happened in 1616 during a fifteen-day gap in his reign, which is marked only by this notation in the king's handwritten annals (which appears at the beginning of the film): "Matters [that] need not be known shall be removed from the gazette." The story, in which a lookalike impostor temporarily occupies the throne, is almost a sub-genre unto itself. The PR campaign for Masquerade invoked Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, but that comparison only scratches the surface. Anthony Hope's 1894 novel, The Prisoner of Zenda, and its numerous film adaptations, relied on a similar device, as did Mel Brooks's parody variation in History of the World: Part I, which immortalized the line, "It good to be the king!" The Gary Ross-scripted Dave imagined the same scenario in the Oval Office, while Paul Mazursky's Moon Over Parador transplanted it to a Latin American military dictatorship. The richness of the subject also appealed to the legendary Akira Kurosawa, whose Kagemusha tells the story of a dying warlord replaced by a "double".

Masquerade makes the most of this impersonation device by embedding it into a densely textured recreation of the 17th Century royal court, with all its formalities, plots and intrigues. There's no better device for exploring such a strange and colorful world than dropping an unprepared commoner into the mix. To the poor outsider, whose name is Ha-sun, this world is as foreign as it is to modern eyes. He has as little comprehension of it as we do, which makes it easy to relate to his discomfort.

King Gwang-hae (Lee Byung-hun) presides over a fractious court that is superficially bound by ceremony and deference but, just below the surface, seethes with conspiracy and antipathy to the monarch. At the moment, the King is being pressed to declare his brother-in-law, Yu Jeong-ho (Kim Hak-jun), a traitor. This will pave the way for eventual removal of the Queen Consort (Han Hyo-joo), whom the King married for political reasons to preserve the peace with neighboring warlords. Personally, they are estranged, and the King prefers to spend his nights with Lady Ahn (Lee Al).

The King suspects that he is a target for assassination, and his fears are confirmed when a spoon dipped into his food turns black, even though the official taster, Sa-wol (Shim Eun-kyung), has suffered no ill effects. (The blackening is later revealed to have an innocent explanation.) He orders his most trusted advisor, Chief Secretary Hyo Gyun (Ryoo Seung-ryong), to find him an exact double, so that he can fool his enemies on the nights when he slips away to be with Lady Ahn.

The Chief Secretary and the King's personal bodyguard, Captain Do (Kim In-kwon), find their double in the 17th Century Korean equivalent of a tavern, where a local entertainer named Ha-sun (also played by Lee Byung-hun in a remarkable dual performance) pleases crowds and risks punishment by mocking the King. Without being told the reason, Ha-sun is dragooned into service and made over into the King's likeness. The scene in which the King inspects his new double is so reminiscent of a similar one in Dave that it's hard to believe the makers of Masquerade were not familiar with Ivan Reitman's 1993 comedy favorite. (Any fan of Dave will spot many other parallels.)

The Chief Secretary shortly has greater need of Ha-sun's services, when the King falls into a coma during a visit with Lady Ahn. The royal physician (Kim Jong-gu) calls it a poisoning and cannot be sure when (or even if) His Majesty will recover. Fearing that word of the King's incapacity will throw the palace into chaos, the Chief Secretary installs Ha-sun in his place, while the royal physician tends to the ailing monarch in secret.

The early scenes of Ha-sun's "reign" are more comical than anything else, as the ill-prepared entertainer struggles to adapt to the arcane rituals of an exalted ruler. (The bathroom routines are particularly squirm-inducing.) Gradually, however, he begins to grasp the seriousness of the business that now swirls around him. In this he is ably assisted by the otherwise taciturn Chief Eunuch (Jang Gwang), who senses in Ha-sun an opportunity to influence policy unlike any that has previously presented itself. Because his instinctive sympathies lie with common people like himself, Ha-sun begins implementing the very land and tax reforms that had initially been supported by Gwang-hae, thereby endangering his life. But Ha-sun acts swiftly and abruptly, without any consideration of the political niceties, and sharp eyes in the royal court note that the King has changed. The Queen Consort in particular cannot understand what has come over her normally standoffish husband, who is suddenly writing her love poetry.

At several key points throughout Masquerade, individuals close to the King are faced with a choice between loyalty to a man, whom their intellect tells them is an impostor, and loyalty to the values he espouses, which their hearts tell them are right. Perhaps no character travels a more difficult route than Captain Do, the royal bodyguard, who helped select Ha-sun even though he despised the comedian for mocking the King. By the end of Masquerade, the Captain has become a noble warrior fighting against impossible odds to defend a person he once reviled. Belief in a greater ideal has made him the stuff of legend.

Masquerade Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shot on Red by Lee Tae-yoon (The Man from Nowhere), another of the film's Grand Bell winners, Masquerade is a stunning demonstration of how to use digital photography in the creation of a sweeping historical epic. Its vistas of the 17th Century Korean royal court peopled with ministers, nobles, servants, soldiers and innumerable other functionaries, all adorned in elaborate period garb and seen in clear focus, are a textbook demonstration of the ability of digital photography to render both scale and detail in a manner that used to require 65mm photography, with the attendant expense and technical limitations.

As is typically the case with digitally originated material, CJ Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray provides an excellent image, with sharp and detailed clarity, vivid colors that are never oversaturated, deep and solid blacks, and fine shadow detail that never suffers from an excess of contrast. Reds and golds are especially vibrant, and the various shades of white in the servants uniforms and the robes of the crowd in the huge courtyard are rendered with subtlety.

Although the film runs 132 minutes, the complete lack of extras and also of lossless audio has allowed it to fit on a BD-25 without any noticeable artifacts.

Masquerade Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

CJ Entertainment has provided a choice between 5.1 and 2.0 soundtracks, in either Korean or English. Both of the Korean tracks automatically engage English subtitles, which can be switched off manually.

All of the audio tracks are Dolby Digital at standard DVD bitrates. While the absence of a lossless option is regrettable, the Korean DD 5.1 track to which I listened provides an acceptable listening experience, with well-centered dialogue (the intelligibility of which I cannot judge), a distinctive sense of the various environments, an enveloping surround field for such sounds as the chanting by crowds at court, and a well-balanced reproduction of the soaring score by Mowg and Kim Jun-seong.

Masquerade Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The disc contains no extras.

Masquerade Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

At the moment, the Blu-ray of Masquerade is available only as a Best Buy exclusive, with an Amazon listing indicating a wider release next year. Masquerade is the first Blu-ray by CJ Entertainment (now known as "CJ Entertainment & Media" or simply "CJ&M") released under a recently signed distribution deal with Inception, and if it's an indication of things to come, the future looks promising. Lossless audio and a few extras are all that needs to be added. In the meantime, Masquerade can be ordered through Best Buy, and it is highly recommended on the strength of the video quality and the film itself.