The Pirates

THE PIRATES:
In 1388 the Joseon Dynasty is on the verge of becoming official and all that is left to make it official is the Royal Seal of the Emperor and the name. Everything seems like it will happen but a very unexpected event takes place that changes the course of the Royal Seal. While at sea the Royal Seal somehow ends up in the passion of a whale. How it got there is being kept a secret but the hunt for the whale and the Royal Seal is no secret at all. Pirates, gangs, and every other type of person that wants the seal is now out on the hunt for this whale that has the Royal Seal.

PILAGE AND PLUNDERING:
The Pirates was one of those movies that I just couldn't quite figuring out if I liked it or if I didn't. First off the plot, what is it? I'm not really 100% sure if I do know what the plot is supposed to be about. When reading the description given on the back of the case, The Pirates is a movie about a whale hunt that holds the key to a new dynasty in it's belly. When you go by the name and the picture on the front cover, well it's not about a whale hunt, it's a pirate movie that will have a duel between a male and female pirates and a fight with ships. After watching this movie the plot had a man who thought his leader was stupid for not going to war, a female pirate that decided to take out her captain, a deserter pirate that finds some bandits, and a story about a whale.

This movie flip flops all over the place so that I really didn't know what the core story was about. I kept thinking it was one thing but then a new story would start to develop and that thought I had before was changed. Not only does this plot keep chaging but the actual plot that is given on the back cover for this movie ain't entirely true. Sure there are the pirates, the gangs, and the whale that has the Royal Seal, what it don't have is the whale eating the seal. Maybe I mistook it for what really happens, the movie is set at night too much and it's darker then I would have liked it to be, so when the scene with the whale happens it sure don't look like it at the seal rather than gets stuck with the seal. I suppose this serves as a way for them to know that this is the whale they where looking for, after all, it couldn't be easy tracking a whale with no way of knowing that it's the one they seek or just another whale.

At any rate, the movie does jump all over the place. I thought it was going to be about a guy standing up to his ruler that is making a mistake in that guys opinion so he leaves the ranks of his army to go form a pirate army. Only it then changes to being about a famale that the other pirates like and is taking over her captain and now controlling his ship. But then it jumps to being about the whale, a gang in the woods, and about a fight for the whale. To add to the jumping plot lines, this movie also has a flip flopping of being serious and being a comedy. Like the plot where I start to think that it's going to be one way it turns out to be another. The Pirates starts off being serious with a serious plot, well, as serious as you can get when taking a guy going against his ruler and having a sword fight in the rain. But then it becomes a comedy, then some spiritual movie with the whale, and it keeps this changing in style through the whole thing. Though both the serious moments and the comedy side of this movie is done well enough that I did enjoy it, but I just didn't enjoy it being all over the place.

BLU RAY:
Aside from the movie not having any cohesiveness to it, the way it looks more than makes up for that. With the cinematography being as good as it is, I was just enjoying watching the movie. The picture quality of this movie was good enough that it looks really sharp on the TV. How sharp and clear the picture quality sure does go a long way in helping out the scenes that it's worth watching just to see how good it looks. Though the audio levels are lacking some, with the very loud music that seems to be misplaced in some of the scenes that has dialog that gets low levels. Still a fun movie that looks really good on Blu Ray.