#80 Inchon (1981)
I must admit, I know very little about the Korean war. Everything that I could possibly learn I thought was covered by the documentary M*A*S*H, which followed a chef during the Korean War and his never ending quest in search of the ultimate potato accompaniment to a dish. This was very popular and an instant download series called S*M*A*S*H was a hit in the 70's.
I was surprised by my lack of knowledge around the Korean war, which given the recent stand off in the region is a bit unforgivable on my part. However, a little research tells me that the battle of Inchon is considered a pivotal moment in which the UN and South Korean army, who were losing heavily and being pushed further south by the invading North Korean army, started to turn around their fortunes. A surprise amphibious assault masterminded by US Marines General Douglas MacArthur ended in the capture of the city of Inchon and subsequently the retaking of Seoul from North Korea. I will not go into much further detail due to my lack of knowledge, but also because this blog is not supposed to be a history lesson. Fortunately neither is the film 'Inchon'!
Inchon focuses on General MacArthur and his preparations and planning for the amphibious landing in a drawn out and ludicrously long fashion. At 141 minutes it really is a numb bum movie, which I would not mind so much if there was enough to keep me occupied. I remembered watching JFK, which at 189 minutes is too long for some, but I was so engrossed by the wonderful conspiracy theories woven together by Oliver Stone, that I did not notice that I had lost the use of my legs until I got up to leave the cinema. With Inchon I could feel every strand of hair go numb as nothing after nothing happens very slowly.
MacArthur is played by Sir Laurence Olivier, who you would think as a great actor and thespian would bring some magic to this movie and off course you would be wrong. The first thing wrong with Olivier is the make up which seems to have been applied with a trowel by my mate Trev who does a bit of DIY. His skin looks ludicrous and shiny and his hair is died jet black with crude oil. The overall appearance is that of a shop dummy dipped in varnish and slowly melting.
Like the dummy, his acting is lifeless and unfortunately we have the version of Olivier who very publicly and very honestly admitted that he was in the 'pay check' stage of his life. Rather than seeking great acting roles he was just earning as much money as he could for his family after his death. For this reason he was not fussy with some parts he accepted and certainly did not give 100%. For this reason Olivier gives an awful performance with an awful American accent that must sound to a US citizen how Dick Van Dyke's cockney accent sounds to me. Gawd Blimey Mary Pawpins, we will launch an amphibious assault, guv.
There are a couple of other famous faces in the movie, Jacqueline Bisset plays Barbara Hallsworth, wife of Major Frank Hallsworth, (Ben Gazzara) who is involved in an incredibly boring sub plot in which she drives some orphaned children to safety in the south. I personally can feel every stone and bump on the road as she trundles along through the movie. Her husband is involved in another yawn subplot of having an affair with a local which no one really seems to care about and quite Major Frankly, neither do I.
David Janssen, (not to be confused with David 'Kid' Jenson), is another famous face, particularly if, like me, you were a fan of the 1960's original TV series, The Fugitive, in which he plays Dr. Richard Kimble. Janssen is journalist, David Feld, who turns up at various press conferences and explains to the rest of the journalist MacArthur's background and the current situation of the war. He seems to be a glorified narrator and subtitles or a voice over would have sufficed.
So distraught was Janssen with the movie that to get out of playing this character any longer, he decided to die. I wish he had held on because in the final Cinema version his part in the movie was removed along with all references to the other journalists, (subsequently put back in for the TV version). This would not only have please Janssen but also our old friend and acting powerhouse Rex Reed.
You may remember Rex from #99 on our list, the truly terrible Myra Breckinridge, (check out our reviews if you have not seen this movie and hopefully we will put you off ever having to waste your life on that pile of horse dung). From IMDb it would seem that Reed has only done 5 movies and 2 have appeared on our list! For crap choices he's now 2 and 0, but more worryingly, I have discovered in between writing these reviews that Rex is actually a movie critic! Well I guess he's kind of an expert on what makes a bad movie and if he would ever like to guest review, he is more than welcome! However, it does feel a little bit like Tony Blair becoming a peace ambassador for the Middle East......
The movie cost $46 million dollars to make and from watching the movie I wonder what they did with the other $45,999,999. It looks really cheap throughout, and is more like a film you would find on cable channels such as Tru Movies than a cinematic release. There are some nice explosions and action scenes but unfortunately the action seems to involve the North Korean soldiers spraying bullets into every one they meet. It is repetitive and used so often that you realise that they use the same bullet ricocheting noise for each bullet fired. It hits some metal, 'Pyow', a body, 'Pyow', the water, 'Pyow', each and every one the same, but it does not stop there as they appear to use the same sound effect for tank shells!
The indoor sets look shoddy and possibly was made by the same set designers who worked on Prisoner: Cell Block H. The outdoor sets do not fair better and a typhoon destroyed most of it including a lighthouse they had built which is key to the storyline. Judging by the build quality of the indoor set, the makers claim it was a typhoon, I suggest it was a strong breeze with drizzle.
The film did go massively over budget and over time resulting in some of the actors having to be paid extra as they were only hired for a short period, (literally large wads of cash were delivered to Olivier to hire him for completion of the movie!). Most studios would have seen the mounting costs and would have halted the filming in an effort to stop hemorrhaging money. So why did this studio not do the same? Well the answer to this is also the answer as to why this shocking piece of cinema was ever made, for you see the whole movie was financed by the Unification Church.
The Unification Church is a religious group who beliefs are based on the bible and was founded by Sun Myung Moon, which has led to the nickname, (although one the Unification Church takes great offence to) of the Moonies. This is not a blog about religion, so I won't go too deep into their beliefs but they were viewed in the US as a bit of a 'cult', recruiting and brainwashing people into following their beliefs. Indeed Inchon was supposed to be an advert for their church and MacArthur's religious beliefs, (not Moonie by the way), are really hammed up in order to drive the point home.
Moon himself, used to preach in North Korea, but was imprisoned by the communist North Koreans at the end of the 40's. Upon release, he fled to South Korean and set up the Unification Church. This may have had a slight influence on the making of this film as all North Koreans are depicted as sadistic bastards defeated by the mighty bible loving MacArthur and off course God himself, (who is not given a credit at the end, which I think is a bit mean). In a deleted scene, it is rumoured that Jesus himself makes an appearance on a cloud telling MacArthur and team to fight against the North Koreans. It sounds like something out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but supposedly true. Either way I am pleased that the version I watched did not contain this or indeed the other 40 minutes of material which made up the original movie, (which was over 3 hours long!).
The film only made $2 million at the box office and is one of the biggest flops of all time. Some say that the Unification Church's influence on the movie and potential turning up at movie theatres to recruit, is what turned people away. I think this is true to an extent, but I suspect the reviews from the original 3 hours showing in Cannes probably put a lot off and the subsequent feedback from those who saw it once it had a full release in the US.
I started the blog by saying that what was worse than a 1 hr 51 mins film about Genghis Khan and the answer being a 2 hrs 21 mins film about the battle of Inchon. That is not quite right, what was even worse was that the 2 hrs 21 mins is not on DVD, VHS or available for download. That meant we had to watch this crap over 14 parts x 10 minutes on YouTube! But this is not bad for you, my bad movie avoiding friends, as it does take a lot of effort to try to watch Inchon, so most of you probably never will. I just wished I was one of them....
You may remember Rex from #99 on our list, the truly terrible Myra Breckinridge, (check out our reviews if you have not seen this movie and hopefully we will put you off ever having to waste your life on that pile of horse dung). From IMDb it would seem that Reed has only done 5 movies and 2 have appeared on our list! For crap choices he's now 2 and 0, but more worryingly, I have discovered in between writing these reviews that Rex is actually a movie critic! Well I guess he's kind of an expert on what makes a bad movie and if he would ever like to guest review, he is more than welcome! However, it does feel a little bit like Tony Blair becoming a peace ambassador for the Middle East......
The movie cost $46 million dollars to make and from watching the movie I wonder what they did with the other $45,999,999. It looks really cheap throughout, and is more like a film you would find on cable channels such as Tru Movies than a cinematic release. There are some nice explosions and action scenes but unfortunately the action seems to involve the North Korean soldiers spraying bullets into every one they meet. It is repetitive and used so often that you realise that they use the same bullet ricocheting noise for each bullet fired. It hits some metal, 'Pyow', a body, 'Pyow', the water, 'Pyow', each and every one the same, but it does not stop there as they appear to use the same sound effect for tank shells!
The indoor sets look shoddy and possibly was made by the same set designers who worked on Prisoner: Cell Block H. The outdoor sets do not fair better and a typhoon destroyed most of it including a lighthouse they had built which is key to the storyline. Judging by the build quality of the indoor set, the makers claim it was a typhoon, I suggest it was a strong breeze with drizzle.
The film did go massively over budget and over time resulting in some of the actors having to be paid extra as they were only hired for a short period, (literally large wads of cash were delivered to Olivier to hire him for completion of the movie!). Most studios would have seen the mounting costs and would have halted the filming in an effort to stop hemorrhaging money. So why did this studio not do the same? Well the answer to this is also the answer as to why this shocking piece of cinema was ever made, for you see the whole movie was financed by the Unification Church.
The Unification Church is a religious group who beliefs are based on the bible and was founded by Sun Myung Moon, which has led to the nickname, (although one the Unification Church takes great offence to) of the Moonies. This is not a blog about religion, so I won't go too deep into their beliefs but they were viewed in the US as a bit of a 'cult', recruiting and brainwashing people into following their beliefs. Indeed Inchon was supposed to be an advert for their church and MacArthur's religious beliefs, (not Moonie by the way), are really hammed up in order to drive the point home.
Moon himself, used to preach in North Korea, but was imprisoned by the communist North Koreans at the end of the 40's. Upon release, he fled to South Korean and set up the Unification Church. This may have had a slight influence on the making of this film as all North Koreans are depicted as sadistic bastards defeated by the mighty bible loving MacArthur and off course God himself, (who is not given a credit at the end, which I think is a bit mean). In a deleted scene, it is rumoured that Jesus himself makes an appearance on a cloud telling MacArthur and team to fight against the North Koreans. It sounds like something out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but supposedly true. Either way I am pleased that the version I watched did not contain this or indeed the other 40 minutes of material which made up the original movie, (which was over 3 hours long!).
The film only made $2 million at the box office and is one of the biggest flops of all time. Some say that the Unification Church's influence on the movie and potential turning up at movie theatres to recruit, is what turned people away. I think this is true to an extent, but I suspect the reviews from the original 3 hours showing in Cannes probably put a lot off and the subsequent feedback from those who saw it once it had a full release in the US.
I started the blog by saying that what was worse than a 1 hr 51 mins film about Genghis Khan and the answer being a 2 hrs 21 mins film about the battle of Inchon. That is not quite right, what was even worse was that the 2 hrs 21 mins is not on DVD, VHS or available for download. That meant we had to watch this crap over 14 parts x 10 minutes on YouTube! But this is not bad for you, my bad movie avoiding friends, as it does take a lot of effort to try to watch Inchon, so most of you probably never will. I just wished I was one of them....
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