The emperor of the Kingdom of Shilla destroys the Auta tribe that worships the Great Tree, and the hole were the tree once stood turns into a dark lake. A sword is set at the lake to seal off the sorcery power of the Auta Tribe. 1000 years later the Kingdom of Shilla, under Queen Chinsong’s reign, becomes weaker as time goes by, and has to fight endless battles in hope to save the nation. General Biharang, one of the queens most trusted men fights for his country, but after years of wars he just wants to live a quiet life with his love Jaunbie, a peasant girl. When Biharang yet joins another battle, some assassins are sent to kill Jaunbie, and when she's trying to escape them, she falls into the lake and releases the spirit of the Auta Tribe.
This is a hell of an entertaining fantasy movie. I know it has gotten some bad reviews, and even though it has it's faults, it sure has a lot more greater things in it to make up for it as well. Watching The Legend of the Evil Lake kinda remained me of the HK movie The Bride with White Hair. Not that it borrows from that movie or anything, it's just similar at certain places, they both feature super natural stuff and both contains huge amounts of fantasy elements.
The Legend of the Evil Lake is first and most a love story about this General Biharang, working for the queens army and this peasant girl, Jaunbie, that is the love of his life. After the assassins try to kill her and she falls into the evil lake, her body is possessed by the Auta tribe's warlock and she goes after the assassins. Later on Biharang finds her when she's attacking the queen and some guards and lets her get away, despite that she's not herself anymore. He refuses to let anyone kill her since he can tell that there are still something left of her real self in the possessed body.
But while it's first and most a love story, it mixes different genres into the whole thing which gives us a little of everything. The movie itself is kinda fairy-tale like, and the story together with the surroundings and the overall atmosphere sure makes it feels like you're watching a fairy-tale. There's a lot of fantasy elements here which makes the fairy-tale feeling even greater. Other than that, there are some swordplay, many action scenes and some martial art scenes as well.
 
The viewer gets treated to a lot of fight scenes were blood is gushing at times, were arms and legs are chopped off and were heads roll. This is something that makes the movie even better since it gets to be raw every now and then, and therefore ends up just not a cute fantasy love story.
Since we get some Korean history in the movie as well, it also makes the war and battle scenes feel a bit more genuine, and everything that has to do with them are well shot and choreographed. Actually the whole movie is well shot and looks really good, and the different surroundings and the overall environment really adds a lot of feeling when watching this flick.
The movie uses has a bunch of CGI effect, and I remember some effect used in the beginning of the movie did not look too good, but it's not used that often and are for most of the time totally ok to watch when used. I'm not a big fan of these type of effects used in movies but it's totally watchable anyway.
The actors all to a decent job with the characters, only thing that ended up being totally ridiculous was when Jaunbie being possessed and starts talking. They've added effects to the voice that's suppose to make it sound, I guess evil, but it just sounds stupid. Fortunately she does not speak much while being in the possessed state. Another thing that was bugging me a bit was that Biharang says the name Jaunbie like times in the movie and that was kinda annoying. Although, these complaints are just minor things that does not really matter or that brings the movie down that much. All the faults are basically just little things that are all fairly easy to ignore.
Why this flick gets such a high rating is mainly because it's so darn entertaining. There's not a slow minute or a dull moment in the movie, and the action and overall fantasy feeling is great. It's a nice love story, not gripping, but still interesting enough for you to care what gonna happen. Also the mix of many kinds of genres are great and makes the viewer get a little of everything. Recommended.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Cheonnyeon ho
MOVIE YEAR: 2003
DIRECTOR: Kwang-hoon Lee
WRITING CREDITS: Hong Ju-ri
GENRE: Fantasy, Swordplay, Romance, Action, Martial Arts
CAST: Jun-ho Jeong, Hyo-jin Kim, Hye-ri Kim
COUNTRY: South Korea
RUNTIME: 92 min
RATING: 8/10
Legend of the Evil Lake, The Website/IMDB Click here
Legend of the Evil Lake, The Trailer Click here
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