Why so much hype?

Absolutely Brilliant!

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Wow. I can't believe some of these reviews. Of course if you watch a dubbed version of a Korean movie, the acting's going to look and sound cheesy as hell.The movie features a lot of very interesting sides of history that has never been revealed before.Yes as someone has mentioned before, Queen Min was brutally raped before death. Japan in entirety did the same to Korea for about 35 years. How can you say that Japan was not the villain? They took Korean women, destroyed businesses, families and forced the Koreans to work under their boots.This movie I did see some typos, but those are minors. These are some of the top Korean actors and apparently for those who think this was horrible acting, you will never understand. It's like reading poems by Pushkin in English. If you don't know Russian, Pushkin's poetry will sound very bad to you. But only those who know and truly understand Russian can comprehend and understand its beauty. I can say the same thing here. If you understand Korean and Korean history throughly, then you will truly know what a masterpiece this movie is.And to all those who think that this movie is a nationalistic-hungry movie, whose director is out there to just "praise" about Korea, you are wrong. Korea was exploited by the Japanese and at the moment in the world, they are trying to hide most of it.Shinzo Abe, the current Japanese Minister Official refuses to acknowledge for comfort women and apologize for what has happened in Korea... This is unacceptable.

Many of the Korean movies I've seen lately seem to take this same nationalistic stand where Japan is pictured as extremely evil, always pressuring, conquering and violating Korea. I don't know what the exact situation in South Korea is at the moment, but judging from these movies, nationalism seems to be pretty much in demand.As for the movie, mediocre would be my word of choice. Not bad, but nothing really worth watching for. The events have rather dragging pace, most of the actors are plausible, music suits the movie well and action looks good. The plot is weakest point of the movie, being unconvincing at best, it focuses on Korea digging up their Emperial history and rising to resist Japan after all the cruelty they have suffered from their behalf. Certainly not best that Korean movie industry has to offer.

Softening up is vilifying? When Myungsunghwanghu was killed, she had her breasts sliced off and Japanese soldiers raped her dead body. In this movie all the Japanese samurais did were stab her six times, which I admit is gory, but is less gruesome than the truth. Ask any Korean adult that remembers history class and they will likely repeat this. The reason the portrayal was softened up was to make it viewable for a somewhat larger audience.The movie has great acting, although I must admit there are some English typos and grammatical errors. (causion, disappear). The only real cheesy sounding actor is Cha Tae Hyun. The president is portrayed perfectly, and several of the turn-arounds (the President actually ordered himself to be incapacitated to see who was Chin-il-pa ish - in favor of the Japanese).I love this movie because the director seems to bring a totally possible (theoretically) situation to life. Excellent, excellent, excellent.

Overall, I liked it. There are things about it that could have been better thought out and some that had inaccuracy, but once I suspended my belief, it was quite enjoyable.The premise that Japan would start a war with Korea over the opening of the railroad at Dorasan and possible N/S reunification was a bit far-fetched, but I guess as good of an excuse as any to use (it worked into the plot pretty well). That Japan forged the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty using a fake state seal and that the real stamp was hidden has been argued for years, so there is some validity for that being used in the movie.The assassination of Queen Min was a mixture of fact and fantasy in the movie. Reports from that time are that Japanese, dressed up as Korean soldiers, along with some disgruntled Korean soldiers, took the Taewongun (King Kojong's father) to the palace at 3 a.m. on the night in question. When confronted by the palace guards, the Japanese/Korean soldiers attacked, easily overtaking the defenders. In the movie, the Japanese were clearly dressed as Japanese; although it is possible some really may have been dressed that way, I tend to doubt it, as Japan wanted it to look like the work of Koreans alone. Also, how the queen died (as reported by witnesses) and how it was depicted in the movie are at odds. Witnesses report she hid in bushes outside the palace, was stabbed several times, and while still alive was violated, wrapped in a blanket, and set on fire. In the movie, she defiantly confronted the Japanese and died fairly quickly from several sword stabs and slashes. The choice for the actress to play the queen was good--the queen was a tough young lady and the actress played it well. However, Kojong, by many accounts, was not such a strong person (which is why the queen had so much control); the actor played him as fairly tough and determined.Having Ahn Sung-kee in the role of the president was pretty good (he played the part before in another movie, so he seemed confident). There were some other actors playing historical parts that were typecast (but done pretty well).Again, overall I thought it was an entertaining movie. I'll give it 7/10.