I'm absolutely shocked by Inchon's terrible rating and the reviews portraying it as the worst thing in the history of mankind. OK, so it's not a masterpiece, but Jesus!... there are Adam Sandler movies that didn't get this kind of flak!
I'm not gonna talk about the budget, who paid for what and all that stuff. Let's stick to the movie. The major problem is Robin Moore's awful screenplay. The war subject is treated superficially and the love story is dull and not believable. Ben Gazarra is an American officer stationed in South Korea. He's married to Jacqueline Bisset but their marriage sinks and he hooks up with a local girl. When the Korean war starts, he feels obligated to take his wife out of the country. They meet, talk for about five minutes and get back together. It's ridiculous, not to mention the fact that Bisset and Gazarra had zero chemistry.
As far as the rest of the cast goes, Olivier does a great job as Macarthur. I never really cared for his American accent but he was such a consummate actor, such a master of his craft that even when he was not at the top of his game (he was ill at the time) it's still a pleasure to watch him perform. It's also a delight to see the wonderful Toshirô Mifune, even if they gave him a tiny role that doesn't do him justice. The Korean girls - actresses Karen Kahn (Lim) and Lydia Ley (Mila) - are pretty good. David Janssen e Richard Roundtree have small, rather pointless roles.
Battle scenes are above average. Jerry Goldsmith's musical score is good. The editing sucks; apparently more than half an hour of finished film ended up on the cutting room floor. Sound is also weird; machine gun shots sometimes remind us of cartoon gunshots.
Overall it's a flawed production but very far from being the horrible disaster people made it out to be. To my knowledge it hasn't been released on VHS or DVD, and that's very wrong. The worst thing I could say about Inchon is that rather than a Hollywood expensive A-list movie, it looks like a Lifetime movie of the week. Or a B movie. That's it.
If you have a chance to watch it, by all means do.
I'm not gonna talk about the budget, who paid for what and all that stuff. Let's stick to the movie. The major problem is Robin Moore's awful screenplay. The war subject is treated superficially and the love story is dull and not believable. Ben Gazarra is an American officer stationed in South Korea. He's married to Jacqueline Bisset but their marriage sinks and he hooks up with a local girl. When the Korean war starts, he feels obligated to take his wife out of the country. They meet, talk for about five minutes and get back together. It's ridiculous, not to mention the fact that Bisset and Gazarra had zero chemistry.
As far as the rest of the cast goes, Olivier does a great job as Macarthur. I never really cared for his American accent but he was such a consummate actor, such a master of his craft that even when he was not at the top of his game (he was ill at the time) it's still a pleasure to watch him perform. It's also a delight to see the wonderful Toshirô Mifune, even if they gave him a tiny role that doesn't do him justice. The Korean girls - actresses Karen Kahn (Lim) and Lydia Ley (Mila) - are pretty good. David Janssen e Richard Roundtree have small, rather pointless roles.
Battle scenes are above average. Jerry Goldsmith's musical score is good. The editing sucks; apparently more than half an hour of finished film ended up on the cutting room floor. Sound is also weird; machine gun shots sometimes remind us of cartoon gunshots.
Overall it's a flawed production but very far from being the horrible disaster people made it out to be. To my knowledge it hasn't been released on VHS or DVD, and that's very wrong. The worst thing I could say about Inchon is that rather than a Hollywood expensive A-list movie, it looks like a Lifetime movie of the week. Or a B movie. That's it.
If you have a chance to watch it, by all means do.