Geu huui Lidolyeong: A Period Sequel That Mostly Just Walks

Is it worth the time?

Honestly? Probably not, unless you are a die-hard fan of Korean cinema history or you have a weird itch to see how they handled sequels back in the day. It is slow. Like, watching paint dry in a hanbok kind of slow. If you like your historical dramas to have constant action or clever twists, you will probably hate this. But if you just want to see some old-fashioned storytelling, maybe you'll find a charm in it that I missed.

Lee Mong-ryong is our guy here, fresh off saving Chun-hyang. He’s the hero, obviously. But the movie feels less like a big adventure and more like a long, dusty hike. He leaves his girl in Seoul and goes off to arrest bandits, which sounds exciting on paper but feels a bit repetitive after the third or fourth scene of him looking sternly at a horizon.

The Pacing Problem

There is a sequence about forty minutes in where Mong-ryong is tracking these bandits through the woods. It goes on for what feels like a week. It’s not that the scenery is bad—it’s actually kind of lovely—but nothing happens. Just trees. And more trees. My coffee went cold while I was waiting for someone to draw a sword or say something interesting.

It reminded me a bit of the aimless wandering you see in The Sky Skidder, where you’re just waiting for the plot to remember it has a destination. Sometimes it feels like the director just forgot to yell 'cut' and kept the camera rolling on the actors walking past the same rock twice.

Small Things I Noticed

• The sound design is... well, it’s definitely from a different era. The background music cuts in and out like it’s being played by someone with a twitchy thumb on the volume dial. 🔊
• The bandits look like they are having a great time, honestly. They have much better chemistry with each other than the hero does with his mission.
• There is a moment where a character drops a fan, and he just stares at it for an eternity. I thought he was going to pick it up. He did not.

If you want to see a movie that actually knows how to keep the energy up, you might want to look at The Barber Shop instead. It’s way shorter and doesn't take itself half as seriously. Geu huui Lidolyeong has this weight to it, like it’s trying to be a serious epic, but it just lacks the spark to pull it off.

It isn't a bad movie per se, but it is definitely a 'background noise' kind of movie. I found myself checking my phone more than the screen. Maybe that’s on me. But a movie shouldn't make you want to scroll through your emails, right?