ARAHAN (2004)

This South Korean martial arts comedy is as refreshing as it is entertaining in its portrayal of a bumbling cop turned Tao master, trained to become a powerful warrior and defender of the peace. Although not entirely original in concept, story or execution, it has an abundance of charm and charisma mixed with gold star action sequences which are guaranteed to make you grin and gasp in equal amounts. Move over Stephen Chow, there’s a new man in town!

The bustling urban sprawl of down town Korea is kept safe for its denizens by the ever efficient police force who maintain law and order as best they can amongst organised crime and petty street robberies. But like any modern equal opportunities employer, the Korean police force is home to those hapless few who, despite their big hearts, are always picked last for the good jobs. Sang-whan (Seung-beom Ryu) is a case in point. A bespectacled drip whose buffoonish antics often place him directly in the firing line of his superior officers, seemingly incapable of making the right choice, he is disrespected by colleagues and citizens alike.
Teetering on top of the world amongst the tallest skyscrapers the city has to offer is Eui-jin (So-yi Yoon) a beautifully mysterious young lady who closely watches as a street thug snatches a purse from an unsuspecting pedestrian and escapes into the busy streets on a motorcycle. Eui-jin gracefully leaps from rooftop to rooftop in her pursuit of the perpetrator and finally faces him in a back alley. Having already demonstrated her unique abilities she then throws a misguided ‘Palm Blast’ which accidentally veers off course knocking Sang-whan unconscious after he also witnessed the crime and had just arrived on the scene. Recovering consciousness, Sang-whan finds himself in a strange room amongst a group of even stranger elders who, so he is told, are the last remaining members of the legendary Seven Masters, a group of highly trained martial artists who have the ability to alter their physical essence via the Chi that flows through them. Having seen how well he stood up to the normally deadly ‘Palm Blast’, they invite Sang-whan to train with them, believing that he has the ability to become a great warrior and Tao master. After some initial skepticism he is convinced into starting his training after he is badly beaten by the boss of a local night club. Whilst Sang-whan’s revengeful motivations for learning the deadly martial art skills differ greatly from those of his harmonious teachers, they must now hope that he and Eui-jin have the skills to arm themselves against Heun-un an ancient and evil master who has returned to seek the key to Arahan.

From the moment Arahan opens you get the feeling that you’re watching something familiarly ‘different’. Yes, I know that sounds odd, but everything about this film has been seen before. The ability to bend the natural laws of physics to tip a given situation in your favour is something Neo and his gang of drop outs learned way back in the first 'Matrix' film, so it’s perhaps no coincidence that some of the scenes from Arahan bear more than a passing resemblance to the Wachowski brother’s trilogy. From Eui-jin’s cityscape leaps at the commencement of the film through to the abundance of graceful fight scenes peppered with gravity defying wire-work, to Sang-whan’s reluctance to except that he may be the ‘chosen one’ are all weighty exhibits to proclaim Arahan as nothing more than a light-hearted Matrix wannabe. But it’s hard to berate Seung-wan Ryoo’ approach due to the fact that he has created such a wonderfully coherent story whose multifaceted layering can be enjoyed by the casual and focused viewer thanks to its almost perfect balance of humour, action and plot. The story has philosophical and even moralistic overtones for those who are interested in listening but these can be readily ignored in favour of a much more consumable ‘good vs. evil, boy gets the girl’ type of affair. One interesting point that the filmmakers offer (and one which I personally loved) was the notion that skilled manual workers have already harnessed their Chi without being conscious of it, enabling them to carry heavy loads or balance awkward objects with much greater ease. It’s pretty much a throw away piece of philosophy which has very little to do with the film as a whole but it’s another example of the layering added to the films overall design.
The films humour is next to priceless with the first third of the movie being almost exclusively driven by amusing interactions and situations as the characters slowly begin to manoeuvre into position for the much moodier latter half of the film. It’s all very silly and even a little slap-stick in places but the timing and character reactions are so good that certain moments induce a laugh-out-load situation. As the amusement subsides it’s quickly replaced with some of the finest mixed martial arts choreographed action sequences I have ever seen. Every set piece is an exquisite blend of rapid fighting action mixed with special effects to produce the kind of over-the-top bone crunchers which make one wince in pain. Hand to hand or sword to sword, these Chi brimmed masters could produce a train wreck just by clicking their fingers and often destroy the surroundings during one of their many spats. For a modern day glimpse at how good Jackie Chan used to be at intricate fight scenes especially in confirmed spaces, look no further than Sang-whan’s restaurant brawl as he uses every item on hand as a method of attack and defence against a group of violent thugs. Now that's one hell of a homage to a great master fighter.

Released on the Optimum Asia label by UK based Optimum Releasing, the DVD is packed to the gills with extra’s which will please both fans of the movie and historians of martial arts cinema in general. First up we get a massive 13 deleted scenes to wade through and it soon becomes clear exactly why these snippets ended up on the floor rather than on the feature reel. Next up is a 19 minute feature titled ‘Looking for Arahan: Making of Feature’ which focuses on some of the more challenging aspects of such a physical shoot including the abundance of wire work and some of the accidents which occurred on set. Finally we have a 9 minute feature called ‘Beginning: Developments in Martial Arts Films’ which plots the history of Asian martial arts movies from the 1960’s through to the 1980’s. Examining some of the early influences on the Hong Kong, Japanese and Korean fight scene, this short segment is a very interesting and insightful introduction to some of the great names and their respected disciplines.