Noryang: Deadly Sea Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Noryang: Deadly Sea Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 11, 2024

Noryang: Deadly Sea is touted on the back cover of this release as "the third and final chapter of director Kim Han-Min's epic nautical trilogy", and if that perhaps understandably doesn't instantly ring bells with some, this film follows both The Admiral: Roaring Currents and Hansan: Rising Dragon, though it's perhaps salient to note that the second film was actually a prequel to the first. For better or worse, many of the things I mentioned in my Hansan: Rising Dragon Blu-ray review tend to be true of this entry as well, including what I called its native audience's familiarity with events, which may provide certain obstacles for "outsiders" like we boneheaded Westerners largely unfamiliar with the ins and outs of Korean history.

Once again an epic sea battle is at the center of this story, in this case a 1598 showdown that was the last skirmish in the long running Japanese incursion of Korea. Admiral Yi Sun-sin (Kim Yoon-seok) is once again confronted with treachery and subterfuge, even as his own forces seem to have largely vanquished the Japanese. If that's the general outline of the story, the devil as they say is in the details and even with an almost comical early info dump and repeated on screen identifiers helping viewers keep track of the vast array of characters, my hunch is many viewers will have the same experience as I did of being at least intermittently a little confused as to what's going on. Suffice it to say that the fractious interrelationships between Korea, Japan and China keep what would seem to be a near resolution of a conflict maddeningly out of reach.

Noryang: Deadly Sea continues the tradition of Hansan: Rising Dragon with a rather impressive production design, at least insofar as the practical sets and costumes go. The CGI is at times almost shockingly inartful, including a lot of the shots of the hordes of ships that are a central part of the story. Kim Yoon-seok is appropriately gruff and commanding as an evidently iconic figure in Korean history.

Noryang: Deadly Sea Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Noryang: Deadly Sea is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The closing credits roll feature Arri Alexa logos, but as of the writing of this review the IMDb has no information on the resolution of the DI, though I wouldn't be surprised if it were 4K considering some of the generally nice looking fine detail levels on practical sets and costumes. The cinematography is often quite lush, and the palette incredibly well suffused most of the time. Yellow tones in particular are unbelievably vivid at times. As mentioned above, the CGI struck me as just not very well realized at times, and is perhaps the one major distraction of an overall very commendable video presentation. My score is 4.25.

Noryang: Deadly Sea Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Noryang: Deadly Sea features a nicely immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track in the original Korean (the film evidently screened theatrically with Dolby Atmos audio). The glut of outdoor battle scenes (even if some were obviously green screened) allows for some really nicely layered and directional ambient environmental effects, and as things become more and more calamitous in the story's second and third act, there are several excellent sequences that provide very enveloping sound design, including not just effects but score. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English and (at least a little unusually for Well Go USA releases) French subtitles are available.

Noryang: Deadly Sea Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Character History (HD; 4:15) offers some very brief background on Admiral Sun-Yin, while also featuring snippets of interviews with several cast and crew members.


• Trailer (HD; 1;28)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored so that supplements follow one another automatically (so that clicking on Character History is essentially a Play All button. The disc is also authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the Trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Additionally packaging features a slipcover.

Noryang: Deadly Sea Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Noryang: Deadly Sea can't help but feel like something of an afterthought, an affliction which may have also plagued Hasan: Rising Dragon to a certain degree. Still, fans of the other two films in this perceived trilogy will probably find interest here. Technical merits are solid for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.