VOLCANO HIGH

Directed by Kim Tae-gyun
Written by Dong-heon Seo
Music by Yeong Park
Cast: Hyuk Jang, Min-a Shin, Su-ro Kim, Sang-woo Kwon, Hyo-jin Kong, Sang-hun Jeong, Hyeong-jong Kim & Shi-ra Chae

2001/117 mins/Color/6.1 DTS EX
1.85:1 anamorphic/Korean/Korea/NTSC Region 3

Review from the Cinema Service DVD

Kyung-Sou has been dismissed from many high school due to his rather unique temper and fighting capabilities. Now he has no choice but to stay calm and be a good student. Ironically, he is send to Volcano High, a school where the head master own an secret manuscript for which every students and teachers are fighting for! Whoever owns this manuscript will have total power and could end the chaos of the 17 years war between the teachers and students. Kyung-Sou soons meet the school bullies and leader of the top gang (the Dark Ox) Jang Ryang and guess what... they don't get along at all. It also doesn't help that Kyung-Sou has a crush on the same girl that Ryang wants. After fighting each others, the students will have to join force against a group new martial art fighting teachers, wearing leather and bad attitude.

Imagine a live action anime film and you've got Kim Tae-gyun's VOLCANO HIGH. This film is huge on energy, humour, fx and action. The fights are over the top and the fx amazing. The young cast give great performance especially Kyung-Sou who's facial expression are really cartoonish and over the top. With films like VOLCANO HIGH and RESURRECTION OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL, Korea is becoming a film industry to be reckon with. Special fx wise, these can match any big budget Hollywood films but these are stylish, wild and entertaining... something that can't always be said about American films.

Cinema Service's double disc edition of VOLCANO HIGH is a must. First of all the film is presented in its original in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The image, enhanced for 16x9 high definition tv, looks simply amazing! In the audio department we get a loud 6.1 DTS EX track which kick major ass! The 5.1 Dolby Digital ES track also sounds very good. Also available is a 2.0 Dolby Surround track. All audio tracks are in Korean and make good use of directional fx and surround sound but the 6.1 track is the one to listen to. There's Korean and English white subtitles which are easy to read. The menus are surely some of the best looking I have ever seen! They're in animated 3d with background music and sounds. The film is separated in 24 chapters, comes in a keep case which comes in a digipack and a 4 pages booklet.

But wait there's more, this is a 2 disc special edition after all! On the second disc we get two theatrical trailers, eight making-of segments featuring action scenes, the final battle, fx, the shower scene and more. Cast and crew bios, a look at the credit scene with documentary about the awesome fx for it, eight storyboards to film comparaison, a music video for the film, production notes, a behind the scenes featurette and trailers for other Korean films and LORD OF THE RING THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. A single disc edition was also released in Korea and in France as a special 2 disc edition with the same features as this one. I can't recommend this enough, get it!

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Review by Kim Dubuisson. All Right Reserved. 2002. ©

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