The Restless Review

Jung stars as Yi Gwak, the last of the Imperial demon slayers. The rest of his elite squad—specially trained to keep the common people free from the demonic forces that would otherwise roam freely across the land—have been slaughtered by Imperial forces following a failed coup attempt led by their general who have gone so far as to kill his lover in their zeal to bring him down. He is totally alone, harried at every turn.

Using demons as bait the military finally catches up to Yi Gwak. He escapes but not without first being poisoned and he collapses into near death while sheltered ina remote shrine only to wake somewhere else entirely, a strange city full of people he’s never met who complain about his stink. The stink of the living. Yi Gwak, despite still being alive, has awoken in the afterlife, a sort of Buddhist holding pen for souls awaiting reincarnation. You’d think he would at least find peace here, but no. Demonic forces led by the dead souls of his former compatriots threaten to overwhelm the afterlife and destroy the souls contained there—thus effectively ending the cycle of life on earth—and only the amnesiac spirit of his former lover stands in their way. It falls to Yi Gwak to protect her and halt his beloved commander’s sinister plan.

The Restless aims for epic spectacle and on that level it succeeds entirely. The integration of physical elements with CGI to create the afterlife is seamless and stunning, the production design flawless and the cinematography truly impressive. The film has scope and heft and uncommon visual depth. It is simply a marvel to behold. The wire assisted martial arts sequences—which are plentiful—are also unusually strong, Jung proving himself again to be a versatile and entirely believable physical performer. Choreography is impressive and several of the set pieces—the first demonic assault on the heavenly city, a lengthy sword fight played out on clothes lines suspended high in the air, a pair of Yi Gwak’s former comrades pursuing him through a forest using a system of wires embedded into their backs—are simply jaw dropping. The digital effects in The Restless are arguably the best ever put on screen in Korea.

Those stunning visuals, however, are also arguably the source of the film’s most significant flaw. Basically it seems as though everybody was so focused on the visuals that they simply forgot to finish the script. The Restless summarizes very well, it has all the elements you would need to build a quality script, but in execution it feels more as though they were working from a first or second draft than from a fully polished script. Characters play more as types than people, key relationships are never properly flushed out, and the villain’s motivations—not to mention how he acquired his immense powers—are never made clear. The film moves from set piece to dazzling set piece throughout its running time and each are impressive when taken on their own but the pieces never quite link up into a solid whole. Had they taken even a small fraction of the energy poured into the visuals and used that to bolster the script the film would have been far, far better off for it.

The Korean DVD release is spare by Korean standards—the disc of bonus features includes a selection of behind the scenes documentaries and interviews plus the sixteen minute highlight reel prepared to sell the film at the American Film Market—but the transfer is excellent and the English subtitles strong.

The Restless is beautiful but frustrating. Beautiful purely becauseof the obvious level of artistry and sheer hard work that went in to making it. Frustrating because they came so close—so very close—to making something truly exceptional only to miss on such a basic, primary level. You can have all the visuals in the world, after all, but they ring hollow if they don’t have story and character to back them up.