The early part of this film takes place five hundred years ago when the 'Flute of Prophecy' has been acquired by evil goblins. Three Taoist gods are trying to retrieve it along with two powerful wizards and student wizard Woochi. They are initially successful and the flute is divided into two part so it can't be used for evil again. Shortly afterwards Woochi is framed for the murder of his master so, along with Chorangyi, his dog in human form, he is banished into a picture. Five hundred years later, in modern day South Korea, the Goblins are back so the gods return Woochi, and later Chorangyi from their banishment and together they set off to defeat the goblins and ultimately the person responsible for their release.If you are expecting a serious film then you are likely to be disappointed; yes there is plenty of action but above all it is a comedy. The story is a bit confusing at times, occasionally deliberately so, but ultimately proves to be solid enough. The action scenes are fun in a fantastical way rather than the sort of bone-crunching action that has the viewer wincing. The gags had me chuckling with the sort of humour that is universal rather than requiring the viewer to be steeped in Korean culture. There is a lot of fairly obvious CGI but thankfully it is of a high standard and fitted in with the magical nature of the story. The cast does a solid job; most notably Dong-won Gang and Hae-jin Yoo as Woochi and Chorangyi. Overall this isn't a classic but it is still fun enough if you want a film with a good amount of action and a similar amount of comedy with little in the way of offensive material.These comments are based on watching the film in Korean with English subtitles.

The initial tableaux: A short tale is told of demons being contained by a flute being played. It was to be played for 3000 consecutive days, but the player miscounted.So we have a comedy.The monsters get loose and take possession of the flute. Transfers of mastery among humans fails repeatedly.The incomplete Tao wizard Woo-Chi causes a lot of trouble to obtain the obtain the flute. His master saves his neck and gets the flute. A second master, Hwa-dam, fights him for the flute, which is broken in the process. Since it is split, perhaps the monsters will be contained.The master of Woo-Chi is killed by Hwa-dam, but Woo-Chi is blamed for it. He is cursed to imprisonment for 500 years, and awakens in the present. The break occurs at 46 minutes into the 135 minute film.We switch to current times; the monsters are present, the flute is still broken.Delineation of conflicts: The monsters would like to be free and remain free using the restored flute. The guardians, or whatever, of the flute free Woo-Chi from his prison inside a painting. He is not interested in defeating the monsters and restoring the flute. The guardians, the Shin-shun, work on his ego, which has plenty of soft spots. The monsters try to kill all of them to get the two pieces of the flute.There's a subplot about a young woman whom Woo-Chi meets in the past. He also thinks he meets her again in the present. This was not done well at all, but got all too many minutes of screen time.Resolution: Who cares?

I caught this movie on Netflix. Had never heard about it before, and was pleasantly surprised. The characters are deep, the dialogue is fun, the action is fantastic, the story great, and the special effects OK. Most impressive of all was the solid acting, especially during the final fight sequence. Lovely stuff.This movie brings me back in time, into a dark movie theater, at the very end of 'The Matrix', back in 1999. It had such a promising ending, and then they announced sequels that turned out to be poor.Even though 'Woochi' is not a sequel to 'The Matrix', it feels like a movie that successfully went where those sequels didn't go. Highly recommended for those who enjoy fantasy, action, and a bit of time travel.

An action-packed Korean fantasy epic that charts the story of warring wizards transported to a modern city and the chaos they wreak therein, WOOCHI THE DEMON SLAYER sounds great when you see the story written out. Sadly, though, watching the actual movie is a different story altogether. WOOCHI THE DEMON SLAYER turns out to be a weakly-plotted comedy, full of irritating breakneck editing and general disregard for the usual conventions of cinema: it's overlong, rambling, trivial and most of all a bore.The trailer sells this as a full-blown action movie but it turns out to be a comedy. Now, Asian comedies don't typically do well overseas, so I can see why the trailer was cut that way, but it's still a bit of a cheat. The humour isn't very funny and the script, including various evil wizards, travelling between dimensions, shape-shifting goblins and the like, is all over the place. The one thing the film does boast is some excellent special effects work in the form of above-average CGI, but the elaborate action scenes are spoilt slightly by the disjointed editing and general lack of cohesion. It's a shame, because if the comedy had been toned down and the drama upped, this could have been a very good film indeed; as it stands it's an overlong misfire.