Swing Kids - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Swing Kids



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
As a fan of Asian cinema in just about any form, I was interested in Swing Kids when I got the press release from Well Go USA, but was wondering how a Korean musical would turn out. I mean, I’ve seen Korean action flicks, Korean dramas, horror movies, and straight up comedies, but never have I seen a full blown Korean musical before. Especially one that includes a half “non Asian” cast that is meant to portray Americans (some of the actors are American, others are South African, and others are from various Caucasian dominate countries). Honestly I’m not even sure where to begin. Swing Kids (not to be mistaken for the 1990s Hollywood film of the same name) is a giant tonal mashup of various themes and film styles, ranging from typical slapstick comedy present in most musicals, to war drama, to socio-political discussions on race and social status. At the end of the day I really did enjoy the film, but you have to agree that it is one of the oddest properties that I’ve seen in quite some time, and can just pull you into the bizarre genre mashup at times, and alienate the viewer at the same time.

The film starts out with a documentary style reel that is most likely meant to ground the film in some sort of “reality”. The reel describes the problems of the Korean war back in the 1950s, and setting up an American based POW camp down in the southern islands off the shores of South Korea. There a prison fight had broken out, leaving 31 dead or wounded from the altercation (supposedly this was a real life event, at least up until this point). The commanding officer, one Brigadier General Roberts (Ross Kettle) decides to “soften” up the prison camp and authorizes corporal Jackson (Jared Grimes), an ex tap dancer from Broadway before the war, to form a tap dance troupe in order to put on a presentation for everyone.

Jackson is the lone black person in the entire platoon, and is subject to ridicule from his his more, shall we say, less racially sensitive soldier brethren. With the help of dancing girl Yang Pan-rai (Hye-soo Park), a fat (and slightly effeminate) Chinese prisoner, a North Korean soldier turned traitor, and a North Korean troublemaker named Roh Gi-soo (K-pop star Kyung-soo Do, who’s kind of a legend in his own dancing/singing career) he sets out to make the best tap dance troupe South Korea has ever seen.

The film is a VERY odd one in nature. On one hand you can get intoxicatingly drunk with full on tap dancing musical bits, and then the film will pull back for a bit and get into socio-political issues. For example. There’s a scene in the first half of the film where the typical racists white boys end up having a full on dance off with the tap dancing troupe, but mid stream it changes pace and has the soldiers try to cripple Koh Gi-soo with a crowbar. The same can be said for the final dance scene, which has Corporal Jackson giving the proverbial middle finger to his arrogant CO, and goes into a speech about the humanity of the people he’s training, culminating with an ending sequence that will leave your jaw hanging to the floor with a brutal turn of events. It’s a weird, almost hypnotic movie that shifts tones every 10-15 minutes and while it’s odd, weird, and doesn’t ALWAYS work, I actually ended up enjoying the odd musical quite a bit.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Shot in 2.39:1 and encoded in AVC for the Blu-ray, Swing Kids looks really good for a Well Go USA release. Once again I could find almost no information about the cameras used or the master it was finished at, but googling around and reading a few other reviews seem to hint at Arri Alexa cameras and an unknown resolution DI (mostly likely 2K as that is the norm these days). The film is bright and glossy, with a rather neutral look for some shots, only for the prison camp to be bathed in blues and dusty earth tones. Inside shots tend to look more stylized, with a sort of amber/honey color to the grading. Fine details are excellent, and showcase tons of details, whether that be up close or in the far away shot. Grime under the fingernails shows of immaculately, as well as intimate clothing details and the nicks and dings on the wooden dance floor. There is some banding that comes and goes throughout the film, but it is a minor issue in an otherwise stellar transfer.









Audio:

Swing Kids features a 5.1 DTS-HD MA track labeled in Korean, but is actually a hybrid track as the film has a LOT of English dialog in it to. The track is boisterous, and vibrant, with the dance scenes and musical numbers really pumping up the energy. The track can soften up a bit and fade to a more dialog heavy mix at times, but with the copious amounts of dancing and singing going on, the surrounds get kicked into high gear quite often and the LFE accompaniment is more than impressive. There’s actually a scene near the end where our main hero is buying a body where the LFE just starts pulsing and pounding at such high decibels that I could feel my back doors in my viewing roof flexing and vibrating. My only “complaint” is that the English dialog coming from the Korean actors can be a bit hard to hear at times due to the accents, and the English subtitles that are on only translate the Korean dialog and don’t do so for the English.







Extras:

• Trailers

Final Score: ​

Swing Kids is a unique film that really tries to be an epic film, and in some ways succeeds. The goofy, almost slapstick, comedy from the first half of the 2+ hour film (arguably a bit too long, even in my eyes) segues into melodrama in the second half. A move that is almost at odds with the cheery and goofy first half, especially when the shockingly brutal finale ends the film, and even has the film try to segue once more into a song and dance number. The movie is odd, enjoyable, and very unique to say the least, and Well Go USA has done a great job with the audio and video portions of the disc. Sadly the extras are nothing but a few trailers and previews, but otherwise a very solid disc. Worth checking out.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Kyung-soo Do, Hye-soo Park, Jared Grimes, Jeong-se Oh, Kim Min-ho, Matthew Darcy, Ross Kettle
Directed by: Hyeong-Cheol Kang
Written by: Woo-Sung Jang (the Musical), Hyeong-Cheol Kang (Screenplay)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: Korean: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Korean DD 2.0
Subtitles: English
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 133 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: June 18th, 2019

Recommendation: Worth Checking Out