Woochi as Childhood Dream Movie

When Watching Woochi: Taoist Wizard, I could not help feeling that the movie was 'too much' for me to handle. The cuts are extremely fast, the characters are so over-the-top and one-sided that it is almost too hard to sympathize with them...at the same time, all of these elements seemed to conjure up some weird nostalgic feeling in me.

Suddenly I turned to my friend about halfway through the movie as I realized aloud to them, "This is like my dream movie as a kid!"

"Woochi" included all those elements that I sought in those years (as a 6-10 year old, probably): extremely fast-paced action and plot, characters that were easy to understand, bright colours, a handsome hero I could daydream about, settings that changed all the time and literally in the blink of an eye--not to mention, the movie was probably completely void of takes that were longer than four seconds so it was very easy to be entertained the whole time (or at least "occupied;" I didn't find it that entertaining).

Then I started considering how much movie interest changes as one grows older, and what elements are the most obviously different.

Woochi contains a lot of those Blockbuster elements--but it's as if they are on steroids. I'm guessing Woochi was a big budget film, it was easy to "get," and seemed to really have its own concept that would be easily sellable/advertise-able. I like a lot of those ideas, but when a movie (like Woochi) goes so over the top, it's difficult to really love it. This is for several reasons, I believe.

First, I am trained to build a certain refinement when it comes to film. I should like movies that have longer, more artistic takes. I should like movies that have characters that are complicated and "rounded." If not, I feel guilty--and this idea has actually trained me to genuinely dislike movies like Woochi that are just too, perhaps, "obvious."

Secondly, and maybe more obviously, it's nice to have a movie that challenges the viewer in some way. Woochi simply was not challenging--there was no fill-in-the-blank, up to your interpretation moments; it just gave it to the viewer exactly how it was. This ties into the point above about feeling guilty with this sort of thing.

The watching process of Woochi kind of brought up a blank in terms of reaction from me. I didn't really feel anything but I was definitely able to recognize that this movie is something I would have loved as a kid. What else does that? And where exactly does this guilt in me come from? It's interesting to consider....