6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Set in the Joseon Dynasty period, pirates fight to catch a gray whale which swallowed a royal seal.
Starring: Son Ye-jin, Kim Nam-gil, Sulli Choi, Kim Tae-woo, Lee Kyoung-youngForeign | 100% |
Action | 30% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Korean: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Korean: Dolby Digital 2.0
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Say what you will about Captain Ahab (get in line behind Ishmael, please), at least he never had to deal with pirates—at least not as far as we know, anyway. No, Ahab’s singular pursuit of the most iconic whale in American (and maybe all) literature was marked by mental imbalance and various things like crew discontent and even stormy weather, but at least no one had to worry about being pillaged. Rather incredibly The Pirates, a formulaic but sporadically entertaining 2014 South Korean opus, manages to work in a quest for a whale within an overall story of a female pirate and the supposed founding of the Joseon Dynasty. The film is wildly all over the place from a tonal standpoint, trafficking through everything from slo-mo martial arts sequences to goofy physical humor, sometimes within the same brief sequence, and its alternately whimsical and deadly serious approaches may make it a somewhat difficult slog for Western audiences who want their action-adventure swashbucklers delivered either straight with no comedic chaser, or flat out cartoonish on the other end of the spectrum (which brings to mind another film with a similar moniker, The Pirates! Band of Misfits in 3D). The film is big, noisy, rather glossy and always fun to watch, but its narrative arc is hackneyed, despite the unusual whale angle, and a lot of vignettes sprinkled throughout a somewhat bloated running time seem to be there simply to tick off the requisite boxes marked “explosions,” “swordplay,” and the like, rather than emerging organically from a well told story.
The Pirates is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Whatever the lurching qualities of the script, from a purely visual perspective, The Pirates offers a largely consistent and pleasing experience in high definition. Clarity and sharpness are both excellent, and whether aided and abetted by a bit of CGI or not, some of the exterior footage boasts astounding depth of field (see screenshot 3 for just one example). Though variously color graded to both the ever popular yellow and/or blue sides of things, the overall palette throughout the film is gorgeously varied and very nicely saturated. Fine detail is often resplendent on the intricately woven fabrics of some of the costumes. The CGI is occasionally problematic in the underwater sequences, and in fact about the only noticeably anomaly here is some slight but apparent banding in those underwater moments.
The Pirates lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (in the original Korean, with optional English subtitles) is a suitably exuberant affair, filled to the brim with well done sound effects and foley elements, most of which are placed very smartly throughout the surround channels. The mix can get a bit heavy handed at times, with a lot of competing elements along with sometimes frenetic levels of dialogue, but for the most part prioritization is very well handled (and there are those aforementioned subtitles for the dialogue elements, anyway). An especially fulsome low range helps to support some of the bigger action set pieces. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is similarly very wide and enjoyable throughout this problem free track.
The Pirates can't quite muster up the power to segue seamlessly from schtick laden comedy to more straight ahead action and narrative elements, but the film is relentlessly breathless and never less than entertaining. Some of the aspects are cliché ridden, to say the least, but the film takes a kind of winking, self deprecating approach that makes the hoary tropes a little less grating than they might otherwise be. The physical production is quite stupendously sumptuous and helps to distract from some of the narrative and tonal hiccups. Technical merits on this release are very strong, and even without anything worth shouting about in the supplements section, The Pirates comes Recommended.
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