Among the Gods: Two Worlds

Among the Gods: Two Worlds is a 2017 movie out of South Korea.  The movie is based upon the highly popular webcomic of the same name.  The South Korean movie, Along with the Gods, begins when Firefighter Ja-hong sacrifices himself to save a young girl.  His death is only the beginning of his journey, to determine whether or not he is virtuous enough to be granted the rare shot of being reincarnated.

The journey is spearheaded by a stoic lawyer, impertinent security expert, and a kind hearted assistant.  The quad group progresses through the seven different trials concerning Ja-Hong's life on earth.  Some of the topics of the trials range from violence, family piety, deaths, and injustice.  His journey through these trials are complicated by the relationships with his mute, destitute mother and his vengeful soldier brother.

Many of the references and periodic tongue and cheek dialogue throughout the movie, much of the film is based on some common Asian myths.  It is helpful having some idea of these prior to viewing but at the same time, the myth.  While it is typically common for Asian films to be lengthy and overdone, Among the Gods was certainly nothing short of such concepts.  Laden with CGI and it's easy to see that the actors spent much of the time filming the movie in front of green screens, part of me still had an enjoyment of the film.  While I could see many underlying tones of the popular Chinese story of the Monkey King, many of the popular Asian myths were so prevalent thematic wise that at times, it was too much. 

Certainly this is a film you wouldn't go to specifically for the merit of the work, or story-line.  The plot and script if it had been pared down to a certain extent would have created a more appealing movie, but I enjoyed it to extent, as it was a nice wistful experience of my time living in China, and the over done movies that typically were screened or playing in various restaurants, background destresser noise in my apartment, or hospitals.  The film is heavy handed with it's CGI, and overly done visual effects and is the complete opposite of many of the traditional art house movies I've screened at the Parkway theater in Baltimore.  While I appreciate the plot and storyline that was developed in some areas, many other areas were thrown in merely to get to the seven seperate trials and side stories to get to those points.

I would be curious to track down the webcomic to see how much of it was true to the original comic, if the comic was as scattered with plot twists and story developments.