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Hapless and idealistic young police officer Sang-hwan is pursuing a purse snatcher when he is "helped" by a young woman called Wi-jin. Unbeknownst to Sang, Wi-jin is being trained by the masters ot Tao and has great skills – great skills she accidentally uses on him. When he comes to he is in the company of the masters and decides to train with them and help to be a better officer. As he trains though, the release of the evil Heuk-woon from his underground prison brings a reality to the training that previously had been lost on Sang.I saw this film after a recommendation on LoveFilm and others had said good things about it. Watching it for myself I found a film that has good bits and will appeal to martial arts fans but somehow doesn't really come together. The problem is in the delivery of the story and, to a point, where the story actually goes. At times it appears that this is a Jackie Chan style action comedy, with plenty of bumbling laughs mixed with the action. Then at others it feels like a full-on action film where the focus is on big sequences done without a hint of knowing humour. The again it seems to be a really self-important film about mysticism that takes it entirely seriously. Now, as a fan of cocktails and smoothies, I can get with the idea that things that don't naturally sit together can work great in the right mix – but it has to be the right mix. With Arahan the mix is never right and it feels fractured as if sections of the film were made by different people with different ideas of what the film is all about.As far as individual parts go, there is nothing specifically wrong with anything on its own, even if I personally found the more weighty material to be far too silly to support that tone. This is contributed to by the mix of tones though because it is hard to take the film too seriously when it has characters running vertically down tower blocks and the like. It is a shame because the tone affects the characters and they are uneven as well but the main impact is how much you are able to really enjoy the film. So, you're into the light fun but then suddenly people are dying bloody deaths. Then you get into the seriousness of the mysticism but just as you do then it changes it up again without much connection. The cast do their best with it but most of them are best with the lighter touch and action. Ryu is a likable lead who can "do" geeky as well as he does "muscled-arrogance" later on. Yoon works well with him and she is both pretty and cool, making for another likable lead. The older masters are best when they are allowed to work with the modern twist on their characters but are not so good when the plot makes them get serious and worthy.Overall Arahan is an OK film that has plenty of specific good bits in the comedy and the action sequences – certainly genre fans will like what they find. It is a real shame that the uneven tone breaks it up so much and prevents it really getting a constant flow that the viewer can get into.
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