Monday, October 28, 2013

Review: The Last Stand (2013)

It’s safe to say that people who went to watch The Last Stand’ fall into two categories – those who were exited to see Arnold Schwarzenegger’s big screen comeback in a lead role, his first in 10 years, and those who were excited to see Kim Ji-woon’s English language Hollywood debut. A brief look at the user reviews on the likes of IMDB will tell you which category the majority of people fall into, with endless headers along the lines of “He Said He’d Be Back!” littering the lists of comments.

For myself of course, as someone who happily admits to Ji-woon being his favourite director, it could have been Arnie or anyone else for that matter, I’d be there! I was however a little late to the party, and was a little concerned that in only its third week of theatrical release, the movie had completely disappeared from the cities cinema screens, forcing me into a trip to the suburbs to check it out. Even then, the total audience members for the 7:00pm screening could sadly be counted on one hand. But still, it was a Ji-woon movie in the cinema, my third after watching ‘A Bittersweet Life' (달콤한 인생) in the UK & ‘I Saw the Devil' (악마를 보았다) in Japan, so I was a happy guy.