The Fortress นัมฮัน ป้อมปราการอัปยศ (2017) [ บรรยายไทย ]

It would be unfair, but not altogether inaccurate, to say audiences will undergo an ordeal only slightly less punishing that the one suffered by the folks on screen as they watch Dong-hyuk Hwang’s “The Fortress,” a vividly detailed but exceedingly ponderous historical epic about the 17th-century invasion of Korea by an army of China’s Qing Empire. As King Ingo of the Joseon Dynasty and his loyal subjects remain ensconced in a mountaintop fortress while besieged by Qing forces, a combination of freezing temperatures, starvation and rash miscalculations by prideful military leaders systematically increase the body count. By contrast, viewers only have to worry about being seriously brain-fogged, if not bored to death, as the often confusing narrative sluggishly progresses.

Top-billed South Korean superstar Byung-hun Lee (familiar to North American audiences for his appearances in the “Magnificent Seven” remake and the “G.I. Joe” film franchise) underplays to a fault as Choi Myung-gil, the taciturn minister of the interior who dearly wishes to avoid a war he fears King Ingo (Park Hae-il) is ill-prepared to wage. He advocates for a policy of appeasement, even though if necessitates turning over the king’s young son to the Qing invaders as a hostage.