MovieChat Forums > Alpointeu (2004) Discussion > Hard for westerners (at least this one)

Hard for westerners (at least this one)

posted 16 years ago by ucalderonagosto
22 replies | jump to latest

The plot is confusing but I think the real problem for non-asians is that it is extremely hard to tell the characters apart. Ten korean guys of roughly the same age, in the same uniform and with a helmet most of the time, I didn´t know who was who (the names don´t help much either). The lieutenant and the other officer were easier, but the soldiers were just a mess in my head, unless there was a close-up , and only for the ones with the more peculiar faces, like the mechanic or the cook. I wish they would have enlisted a fat guy, a bearded guy, someone with a scar... for the platoon.

PS: In case you are wondering, I am not an ignorant or a racist who thinks all koreans look alike, please don´t go there. I´ve seen quite a lot of korean cinema. I just found it hard to tell the characters apart in this particular movie.

[–] xjym2002 12 years ago

Waiting for a Hollywood remake...

You know why? It was too damn hard.

[–] Ktw12 12 years ago

When they showed the guys up close I could tell them apart but not from far away. Then they looked to much alike.

[–] Raimar_Lunardi 11 years ago

When they showed pictures, I thought all of them changed... or they used wrong pictures...

But they don't look the same... not in this movie...

Once I watched a USA movie that I was half of the film thinking the good guy and the bad guy were the same person... lolz

[–] Rabbit_with_a_Gun12 11 years ago

At the start I also had problem as well but up close I can tell who is who by their personality. You had the macho one, the scary one, their was one that was a little chubby, and the young kid.

God has a hard on for marines because we kill everything we see. He plays his game, we play ours.

[–] indioblack117 11 years ago

Whnen dealing with an ensemble cast, you do what John Carpenter did in THE THING: you make sure that the people you cast have individual distinguishing features so you can tell them apart.
As an editor, I once had some documentary rushes in which two marine biologists looked so similar and dressed so similar that I thought they were the same person. When I asked the producer why they filmed the same guy in two different locations, she explained that they were actually two different guys. I pointed out that since I assumed they were the same, the audience may also get confused and we needed to address that. We decided to drop one of them out of the show.
It's not rocket science.

[–] MattShade 11 years ago

Yep - totally understandable - I'm a white Aussie and I live with 4 Chinese and an Indian. The Chinese guys' girlfriends all the very much the same to me, and it is sometimes really hard to tell them apart, because they always have their heads down, or don't come out of their rooms unless their BF's tell them it's OK - due to some rubbish gender-bias customs - So yeh I don't think you're being racist at all - Most Asian males, and females, around the mid 20's do often look very very similar.

[–] phoebuz62 10 years ago

well, i am a normal (but exotically european) white guy and i already had problems with telling apart the soldiers in "thin red line"

wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube men! wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube men!