7.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
The 15th ruler of Korea's Joseon Dynasty, King Gwang-hae, orders his councilor, Heo Gyun, to find him a double to shield him from the constant threat of assassination. Heo Gyun finds Ha-sun, a bawdy comedian who looks remarkably like the king. When Gwang-hae is incapacitated, Heo Gyun has Ha-sun pretend to be the king until Gwang-hae recovers. But soon Ha-sun begins to see his "act" as an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of ordinary people.
Starring: Lee Byung-hun, Han Hyo-joo, Yoo Seung Yong, Shim Eun-kyung, Ryu Seung-ryongForeign | 100% |
Drama | 10% |
History | 9% |
Period | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.20:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Korean: Dolby Digital 5.1
Korean: Dolby Digital 2.0
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 kbps)
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
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.
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.
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.
The disc contains no extras.
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.
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