Fans of Dragon Lee specifically and cheesy Korean martial arts movies in general may complain that they don't make B-movies like those anymore. How wrong they are. For while Sword in the Moon, Kim Ui-seok's new millenium action pic, may have a larger budget, it's clearly hacked from the same cloth. Its plot of palace guard intrigue doesn't have much to impress but who needs meaningful dialogue when you've got swordplay, archery, horseback-riding, breath-holding contests, medieval torture racks, and decapitations alongside screaming, snarling, grunting, bleeding, and glaring. There's even a suicide and gratuitous nudity, although not simultaneously.
This is the kind of movie where if you really like it and are asked why, you might get stuck blabbering about the period costumes (quite good, especially the hats), the cinematography (uneven), and the fact that there's a masked avenger who turns out to be a woman. I definitely thought the scaly leather worn by the soldiers was cool but that hardly enough for me to tell a friend, "You have to see this movie on Tubi!" If however, the Korean producers staged a reenactment weekend and we got to don the ornate battlewear, I'd happily show up for the festivities. Packets of fake blood included.
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