Wonderfully offbeat film!

The greatest movie ever made..!

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

DIVINE WEAPON aims to ride the wave of historical epics that have currently been taking Asia by storm over the last decade; you know the ones, invariably involving the likes of Andy Lau and a cast of CGI-augmented thousands battling over the fate of kingdoms. This is the second Korean take on the genre I've seen recently, after the inventive LEGEND OF THE SHADOWLESS SWORD, but it's not as good as that movie. In fact, it's quite boring, an ultra-slow moving tale (glacial would be a better descriptor) of courtly intrigue and rebellion.The idea of a top-secret and, for the time, futuristic, weapon is a good one, but little is done with the premise. In a bid to whip life into the flagging main body of his picture, director Yoo-jin Kim paces out a series of fight scenes in WELCOME TO DONGMAKGOL's Jae-yeong Jeong battles various opponents with his mighty blade, but the choreography is fumbled and the insistence on filming such sequences in half-light to hide any inconsistencies, either technical or physical, is a poor one.In fact, action fans are only served by a climactic battle which is good, if cheesy, fun, although it comes too little too late, sadly. Until that point, there's tiresome romance, the usual Korean concerns with 'evil' foreign powers (China bears the brunt of its hatred this time around) and more sitting around and talking than you can shake a stick at. Yeah, it's definitely one to avoid

This was a entertaining movie from beginning to end and is like the movie "300" but with a more captivating plot. Not being racist but I noticed that a lot of Chinese turn a blind eye and tries to bash on this movie by turning a blind eye. But most historical movies from china is far from being historically accurate and goes in more of the video game directions, especially movies about the seven kingdoms. Especially the fight sequences with men and sometimes women doing crazy stunts to dodge arrows and jumping almost 10 feet in the air to strike a enemy. Truth is china did try to suppress Korea and Koreans created weapons advanced at the time to fight back. Now some scenes in the movie probably didn't happen the way it did, but what historical movie is 100% accurate? I found how Chinese bash on this film in a unfair manner, while turning a blind eye on there super historically inaccurate movies and glorify it while trying to bash on a film that is more accurate than most historical Chinese films. Sure I can understand how it tries to make it more entertaining for the viewers but far from being accurate in most cases. The action is fun to watch and the pacing of this film is well done and you actually care for the characters that is trying to fight for independence. If you want to see one guy fighting 100 at once or people flying in the the air like some movies you might be disappointed. I enjoyed this film though and I highly recommend other Asian movie lovers to check it out as well. I like Chinese movies, but is annoyed by some ignorant critics. Kinda like how some Persians threw a hissy fit about the movie "300", except this film is not based on a comic book. 7.7/10

I would enjoy this movie if the director could did some homework on history.1. The costume of the Chinese officers and solders are very strange, it is a mixture of China in Yuan dynasty (Mongolian style), Ming dynasty, and Qing dynasty (Manchurian style). Ironically the Koreans (mostly man) in this movie are dressed in the costume of China in Ming Dynasty, which is correct because they learnt it from China.2. In Ming dynasty, the kingdom of Korea was under sovereign of China. The emperor o China declared Korea as a kingdom which China would never fight with. Actually, in 16 century, Japan invaded Korea and it was China helped them to win the war. This war cost the Ming dynasty a lot which was one of the reasons of its fall. And after its fall into Qing dynasty, the kingdom of Korea was still loyal to Ming and kept using the era name of the last emperor of Ming internally till 19 century… 3. Gunpowder was invented in China and already equipped in the army as early as in 11 century. In Ming dynasty they even had an army equipped with guns and cannons, which was called Divine Engine Division (Shen Ji (Shin Ge) Ying, the first two characters are same as this movie's title, and the last one means division). It's hard to believe they didn't show any of this in this movie.I could understand Korea proud of their nation and achievement, but this should not be based on screwed history.

It's a hard movie to review. It doesn't seem like it would be a romantic comedy/melodrama/martial arts/swordplay film when all summaries seem to describe it as a historical epic. Since it is a mess of a movie, I'll keep it simple.Good: Solid Action, Great Climax, Good Actors, Good SFX, Decently Paced, Decent Costume Design, Good PlotBad: Not Enough Action, A Genre Mess, Overlong, Poor script leads to overacting, Poor editing and iffy direction/cinematography, Overdone SFX at Climax, Kind of Dull and Unorganized, Inconsistent Production Values, Messy Love story and lack of character development overshadow plot.It's worth a watch, it could be a lot worse, but it is also not the best Korean movie you could watch this year.