Director: Jung-il Oh
Screenplay: Kyoung-woo Kim
Voice Cast: Choi Min-soo as Hail;
Kim Hye-soo as Chaerin; Jeong-hwa Eom as Joshua; Yeong-guk No as Alfonso; Jo
Hyeong-gi as Joey
Viewed in Korean with Subtitles
Synopsis: When an ancient sword is stolen, Hail (Choi Min-soo) is hired to travel to the
USA to retrieve it back from the Mafia, finding himself against the criminal
underworld.
Author Note: This review will spoil the entirety of Blue Seagull. A very difficult film to
see, this decision is as much due to the negativity of the review, finding its
worth just reading the entire text here rather than for you the reader to sit
through the film I experienced. If you still want to see Blue Seagull, at least
you was warned. Also, trigger warning for
discussion of sexual violent, and also warnings in general as even a
description of how bad Blue Seagull could affect you badly.
And I wish I could open the
review without those notes of cautious, but unfortunately Blue Seagull is really that bad. A film halfway through, due to a
certain plot event I will sadly have to discuss, where even my love technically
abhorrent animation has to give over to revulsion or (in the time past since
viewing the feature film) a sense of distaste and bafflement at how a
production collapses to the extent it does here. Even low rent animation I have
sat through over the years, like Beauty
and Warrior (2002) from the producer of Ninja Terminator (1985), could look at Blue Seagull and realise it's better than it, and tragically it
only takes someone to see this film and the important contributions South
Korean animation studios have made in outsourcing of American and Japanese
productions to be undermined in comparison. Even next to Armageddon (1996), another failed Korean animated production from
only a few years later, and this attempt at an erotic action thriller looks
like the Hindenburg disaster.
For three-quarters of its length,
even if still an embarrassment, I was willing to still enjoy Blue Seagull as attempting to match the
type of sleazy, dumb straight-to-video anime from Japanese from this era, only
with a lesser animation quality and meant for theatrical release. For that
length of time the film's memorable for all the wrong reasons in a way that's
entertaining. At first its deceptive with its stylist opening, turning the
voice actors' portraits into their animated characters, only to afterwards jumps
right into the kind trashiness Japan was doing at the time too, a mass gunfight
and massacre which leads to the McGuffin (a sword) being stolen and the plot to
hurdle on in a ramshackle way. With a lead hero, named after a of weather
phenomenon, whose only personality trait is stoicism, the film leads to a mix
of violence, gore and as per the erotic genre tag sex. Obviously a question
arises. Most will ask what "Blue Seagull" as a title actually means,
which I have no idea how to answer unless it's an euphemism for something dodgy
I have no knowledge on. The other question, more pertinent, is that as this is
meant to be an erotic thriller, is it actually sensual or titillating? When the
first scene, even before the film starts proper, is of a woman (whose face we
never see) being leered at on a motorcycle, a purely animated figure, then the
answer is no, it's just tacky and misjudged lavicious behaviour.
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| From http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/korea/ specials/images-lost2/blueseagull-1.jpg |
Even before the problematic scene I will eventually get to, you are watching utterly cheesy softcore images of characters than actual people. It neither helps Blue Seagull's animation is poor. It's the character designs more than the backgrounds which are the issue, alongside how their facial expressions are both between bland and becoming overtly cartoonish despite the story being gritty. One scene in a strip club, meant to be sensual, is closer to the Tex Avery cartoon Red Hot Riding Hood (1943) but crudely produced, so much so the stripper is able to use her breasts to give an over- amorous male patron a black eye as if a sentient body part, the kind of tonal shift (and body morphing) that catches you off guard in a negative way.
It also doesn't help when, to add
to the titillation, they include a former love interest named Chaerin (Kim Hye-soo) who has no plot connection onscreen whatsoever with
Hail despite sharing flashback related back story. They cross paths but she
never encounters him fact-to-face even when the climatic skirmish is a floor above
a car show she is part of. It's merely an excuse to draw a voluptuous female
character who, bizarrely, has a comical introduction having an erotic dream on
a bed about Hail whilst her pet dog
(drawn more overtly cartoonish) licks her to amplify thus fantasy. There are a
lot of plot digressions like this which are to be questioned, especially as the
film is only over an hour long. The sword, when found, is connected to a deity
that appears and abruptly tells Hail he's the chosen one, a point never brought
up again. Loose threads are found throughout, the sole fleshed out character
within the entire film being Alfonso (Yeong-guk
No), who with his red ponytail and facial scaring is also a racist
psychopath, an issue I will get to later too.
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| From https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/f/f0/ Alfonso.png/revision/latest?cb=20140616184031 |
If it was all this illogical chaos I would've enjoyed Blue Seagull. Utterly irredeemable but so absurd I would've found something to enjoy. The sort of insane material where, to chase the hero, Alfonso indiscriminately mows down a men's bathroom with a machine gun whilst, part of a tendency in South Korean cinema of all kind, it splices in comedy with a frightened attendee watching this transpire. The plot barely ties together in spite of its simplicity and even minor characters are full of quirks, like the arms dealer who sits in the same chair in the same dingy warehouse watching porn when no one's there. Blue Seagull also has CGI animation, animated scenes involving cars and vehicles entirely done in computer animation, so the environments (like an airport) are also a basic, crude digital construction around them. It's not that different, honestly, from other computer effects from the time so I can let Blue Seagull off the hook, particularly as it adds to the trashiness. Watching the film in Korean, admittedly, also adds unexpected class to material that doesn't deserve it. Interestingly despite her character Chaerin being utterly pointless, Kim Hye-soo would have a prolific career in Korean cinema, as would Jeong-hwa Eom as Joshua, an American secretary who helps Hail and more charisma as a character than many. Eom's involvement is surprising, considering how bad Blue Seagull is, as she is a prolific actress and singer/dancer. Someone of a huge reputation in Korean music who has won awards for her music, has starred in a lot of television and acted in many films, and is considered a major figure in entertainment in the country. She is possibly recognisable for readers outside of South Korea as well for playing the lead character in Princess Aurora (2005), a film which rode on the back of the Tartan Extreme influenced popularity for Korean cinema, a revenge film where she presides on the promotional material in a leather jacket and clinging black hair. Even the dodgiest animation gains a lot when it's not the broad, wooden English dubs you're listening to but the original language dubs with named talent, even when that might prove a poisoned chalice for said participant, when there are filmographies of Eom which don't even mention this film, showing a potential sign of utter embarrassment about it as well.
Then the problematic sequence
takes place, which is pertinent as it involves a rape scene with Eom's Joshua character. Joshua, even as
a stereotypical attractive figure, is vague interesting as an African American
(or mixed raced) woman with bright red hair who gladly helps Hail and
introduces him to the world of the US. who becomes a romantic interest for the
hero. Unfortunately, when Alfonso has her kidnapped for transgressive against
his boss, it leads this scene which thankfully implies the sexual violence but
is prolonged in the moments before with him chasing her, arms tied back, around
the room in a way that stops being nasty but just uncomfortable in a troubling
way, of how the film itself is leering at the moment. Worse, when the deed is
committed he flippantly kills her with gunfire, this turning her death into a
"woman in the refrigerator" moment where she is merely meant to be a
figure to get revenge for, left for a long time as a bloody corpse on the bed
before anyone finds her. The entire plot point sucks the life out of Blue Seagull as, alongside her life
flashing before her eyes, the entire series of events is the film making a
mistake too many, worse when its intercut with a helicopter versus helicopter
battle with no sense of story priority involved, merely part of the action.
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| From http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/korea/ specials/images-lost2/blueseagull-2.jpg |
It does cause me to self critique myself, having defended anime which have had similar if not worse scenes of this within them. The first answer is that I've never defended any scene of sexual violence or rape in animated or live action film, and wish they weren't included if not depicted in a way that takes the severity of such an act seriously, a problem in anime of a certain era where (like manga) where it was always meant for shock value rather than carefully thought of. Even a work like Urotsukidôji:The Legend of the Overfiend (1989), where there's the issue of the transgressive tone being deliberately, is the kind of understandably condemned animation I wish hadn't taken the route it had and avoid this leering misogyny within itself. The second answer, based on the first, is also that the context and content around the problematic scene even in a trashy work with debatable artistic value can drastically effect one's reaction to the material. Contrast Blue Seagull to the 1988-1994 anime adaptation of Crying Freeman [Reviewed here for contrast]. Also an erotic action thriller, there is one rape scene directly taken from the manga which is worse and I wish wasn't included. It was however a single scene in a multi episode series where, whilst it's still lurid and arguably sexist, the sex within the rest of the episodes are consensual or involves characters, male and female of all shapes, inexplicably taking their clothes off even for a fight. There is the context that Crying Freeman is so absurd and ridiculous as well that, even if that scene is problematic and should be condemned, it is dampened (and practically drowned) but how utterly silly the series before and after is, to the point anyone can distance themselves from that moment1. With Blue Seagull however, from its rape scene onwards, collapses completely and wasn't even worth trying at all before the sequence even happened. In general, the moment that problematic sequence happens the film gets worse, becoming a rare example of a true trash fire as the plot starts to get more garbled and the production falls off the cliff it was barely hanging on to.
The severity of Blue Seagull, jarring against the tone,
causes one to feel dirty and is visibly unintentional in desired reaction. It
neither helps the perpetrator Alfonso is the only vaguely memorable figure throughout.
His voice actor is the one who adds flourish to dialogue. The character has
charisma barring Joshua. He gets the kind of heroic moment the hero should've,
surviving being stabbed in the eye and inexplicably falling out of the window
of a skyscraper at the same time, climbing up from outside by pure will power.
All which is a problem as he's a sociopath who is openly racist to the Korean
and African American characters with his slurs, a murderer and eventually a
rapist. The worse part, which makes the use of a rape scene much worse in Blue Seagull than other tasteless anime,
is that neither Hail or Joshua's brother, who gets involved are the ones who
kill Alfonso despite the deliberate using of her death for cheap emotional
effect. No, a mysterious bystander who is also after the sword, seen in the
background of scenes, creeps up behind Alfonso whilst he's monologuing to the
heroes and snaps his neck instantly. By this point the film's a mess more than
before2 - what with the sword's inexplicable (and never mentioned
again) mythological side and Chaerin seeing
but never talking to Hail, only adding to the distaste of these particular
events. An abrupt conclusion at a gravestone with the heroes crying at Joshua's
grave just adds to the horrible experience with an exclamation.
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| From https://i.ytimg.com/vi/f_MDntLhWWA/hqdefault.jpg |
And its becomes a tragedy as the end credits are live action behind-the-scenes footage of Blue Seagull's production. There's a growing sense of despair to be found watching the creation of a film knowing said production, watched beforehand, was dreadful. The intricate illustration of animation cells. The promotional posters for Blue Seagull on the walls. The voice actors in the recording booth. Animators working hard in a small room, each side facing away from each other at their tables, all with the horrible realisation they worked on a project which fails on all levels. The kind of bleak though to possess that just confirms how utterly awful Blue Seagull was. Utterly compelling to witness, compelling to write about and perversely worth having seen, but so toxic as much of this new obsession of mine is potential psychological trauma. Its not even a case of "so-bad-its-good", a childish suggestion and an ill advised one as no one should readily want to watch a film this dreadful to sit through.
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| From https://s1-ssl.dmcdn.net/-V9J/x1080-04P.jpg |
==
1 - When the male anti-hero decides to take revenge against
the perpetrator, a wrestler, by going to a wrestling show, wearing a Lucha
Libre mask, and challenge him to a match, it doesn't defend the offensive scene
but it becomes bizarre in a way that diffuses the material completely.
2 - This is also when the English subtitles, fan made,
started to become vaguely incomprehensible in an almost symbolic way of Blue Seagull fully collapsing into a
nightmarish experience.
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