Very well executed

Lack of good storyline.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Makes you realise the implication of every act and makes to judge the next. You wont go wrong, but will make you wish you were.

This movie looks gorgeous, with very interesting sets and absolutely stunning, fantastic costumes. Most of the acting is okay, particularly by Woo-seong Kam as the chief clown and Jin-yeong Jeong as the king; but Jun-ki Lee as the girl-like clown of the title is embarrassingly bad - a real ham who can simper and pose and wail and shed real-looking tears, but that's about all. What the king sees in him is beyond my imagining, but then the king is insane, so....The story is so ridiculously overwrought and melodramatic, though, that hammy acting almost fits better than good acting. This movie is fantastic to look at as long as you're able to ignore the two-hour soap opera that makes Dynasty seem like Shakespeare.

Often when I think about writing a preview, I wait until I ramble through my adjectives and stumble upon a gem of a phrase to set the tone of my treatment. The King and the Clown (Wang-ui Namja) directed by Lee Jun-ik gets this phrase: "the pageantry of life." The movie, initially released in South Korea in December 2005, is adapted from the 2000 highly acclaimed Korean play entitled "Yi" (You). Whereas the play is about Yeonsan-gun, a Joseon dynasty king who falls in love with a court clown, the movie uses the love interest of the King to weave a tale of human activity at its most base level of political and social upheaval.What is indeed so amazing is it manages to intertwine this American's imagination (subtitles aside) into its allegorical webs, even while one sits thousands of miles away from its Korean audiences. Such universal appeal is rivaled only by one's love of music.The movie carries its own clout. Indeed, The King and the Clown was the highest grossing (over $85 million in US dollars) in South Korean history. That is, until it was out done by the horror film The Host.Weather the movie was intended to operate as historically accurate film is soon lost on the magnificent delivery of the characters portrayed. The director elicits from his fine cast of actors performances that that further Asian film from the heavy handed fight scenes and bold colors that often connect westerners to Asian film.Among them, Jang-Saeng (Karm Woo-sung) and Gong-gil (Lee Joon-ki) play off each other so well that one begins to wonder if Jang-Saeng does not secretly lust after his partner himself. It takes fine foreign actors to take the American viewer's mind away from the subtitles and feel comfortably lost in the characters.You'll feel comfortable lost and found in The King and the Clown.

When I first heard that the movie King and the Clown was being made, I thought that it wouldn't be very interesting. But it was so good. Directed by Lee Joon Ik(a quite well known director in our country,though not in overseas),King and the Clown tells about a love story between two courters and the triangular relationship between them and the king.(of course,unlike what many foreign audiences might think,although the king,his concubine and Kong Gil are real people,the story itself is 100% made up)What was most astonishing about this movie was that,it showed the passionate love between the two male jesters without showing any sexual scenes.(I liked Brokeback Mountain,but not it was too explicit)And the choreography,costumes etc were so beautifully made with a low budget(around 4.5million dollars). Finally I see a well made Korean movie that was very interesting even without any star actors.