bernardoarquivo
I'm absolutely shocked by Inchon's terrible rating and the reviews portraying it as the worst thing in the history of mankind. OK, so it's not a masterpiece, but Jesus!... there are Adam Sandler movies that didn't get this kind of flak!I'm not gonna talk about the budget, who paid for what and all that stuff. Let's stick to the movie. The major problem is Robin Moore's awful screenplay. The war subject is treated superficially and the love story is dull and not believable. Ben Gazarra is an American officer stationed in South Korea. He's married to Jacqueline Bisset but their marriage sinks and he hooks up with a local girl. When the Korean war starts, he feels obligated to take his wife out of the country. They meet, talk for about five minutes and get back together. It's ridiculous, not to mention the fact that Bisset and Gazarra had zero chemistry.As far as the rest of the cast goes, Olivier does a great job as Macarthur. I never really cared for his American accent but he was such a consummate actor, such a master of his craft that even when he was not at the top of his game (he was ill at the time) it's still a pleasure to watch him perform. It's also a delight to see the wonderful Toshirô Mifune, even if they gave him a tiny role that doesn't do him justice. The Korean girls - actresses Karen Kahn (Lim) and Lydia Ley (Mila) - are pretty good. David Janssen e Richard Roundtree have small, rather pointless roles.Battle scenes are above average. Jerry Goldsmith's musical score is good. The editing sucks; apparently more than half an hour of finished film ended up on the cutting room floor. Sound is also weird; machine gun shots sometimes remind us of cartoon gunshots.Overall it's a flawed production but very far from being the horrible disaster people made it out to be. To my knowledge it hasn't been released on VHS or DVD, and that's very wrong. The worst thing I could say about Inchon is that rather than a Hollywood expensive A-list movie, it looks like a Lifetime movie of the week. Or a B movie. That's it.If you have a chance to watch it, by all means do.
Jonathon Dabell
Inchon exists in at least three versions, all of them very rare: a 90 minute British video version called "Operation Inchon"; a 105 minute version; and the full 140 minutes version released theatrically in 1981. This is a review of the 140 minute version. The past twenty years or so have turned Inchon into one of the film industry's great jokes. Its huge budget, and the meagre box office returns it made, have also destined it to forever be remembered as the biggest flop of all-time. If ever a film deserved to be labelled as "infamous", then Inchon is it. Laurence Olivier top-bills as Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Highly decorated for his WWII heroics, MacArthur is called upon to repel an army of communist forces from North Korea who have invaded their South Korean neighbours in 1950. Against the will of his colleagues, MacArthur masterminds an ambitious landing at the awkwardly-situated port of Inchon. Interwoven into this invasion story are several sub-plots, including the story of Barbara Hallsworth (Jacqueline Bisset), an American lady who leads a group of orphans to safety, and her husband Maj. Frank Hallsworth (Ben Gazzara), who is ordered to seize and hold a strategically important lighthouse in Inchon harbour. It is extraordinary that a budget of over $45 million was allocated to such a badly scripted film. The dialogue is utterly laughable, almost in the style of an exceptionally bad, cheesy TV mini-series. Left helpless in the firing line by the terrible script, the actors (many of them greatly talented) give undisciplined performances. Olivier's turn as MacArthur, for example, is surreal in its awfulness. The battle scenes are done on a big scale but fail to convey authenticity or realism. And, worst of all, there's a peculiar religious subtext as MacArthur repeatedly rants on about the God-given justness he senses in the cause of America and her allies. The film has curiosity value (it's perversely interesting to see so many stars in such deep trouble) but beyond that it offers nothing worth your time.
albers183
A solid epic with a quirky brilliant star performance, hid from view byMoonie Angst and obliterated in the popular imagination bycontemporaneous politically-correct Hollywood production. Free Inchon!
Aussie Stud
I never thought I'd ever hear that line in my entire life. Laurence Olivier is a highly esteemed well-established actor with many film accreditations under his belt from a career in the film industry that has spanned well over six decades. Why he chose to sign on to this monstrosity of a film is just beyond belief."INCHON" had the misfortune of being released in 1981, the first year the infamous Golden Raspberry Award (a.k.a. Razzie) came into existence and it grandly swept nearly every category including Worst Picture and Worst Actor.Upon it's theatrical release, "INCHON" was heavily panned by the critics and played in theaters to which no one bothered showing up. It was pulled almost a few weeks after its initial release. The production and creativity involved with this highly-expensive film project involved nearly 5 whole years in the making, a crew of 250 technicians, 3000 actors (mostly extras), 18 tanks, 12 armored personnel carriers, 24 jeeps, a plethora of explosives and special effects and a bloated budget of nearly 48 million dollars. Did I also forget to mention that this film was financed by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon?Yes, in published interviews with Reverend Moon, he has openly stated that 'God' himself TOLD him to make this movie. With that controversy aside, "INCHON" itself is a repulsive scrap of film. The premise for "INCHON" is loosely based on the incidents involving the United Nations forces landing at Inchon, port city of Seoul, during the Korean War on September 15, 1950. It is a wretched retelling of General Douglas MacArthur's amphibious victory in the early stages of the Korean War.Laurence Olivier portrays MacArthur, supported by an international star cast which would include Ben Gazarra, Richard Roundtree, David Janssen and Jacqueline Bisset who looks absolutely ridiculous in the role as the wife of an Army Major. Unfortunately, the biggest problem here is that the director, Terence Young, finds it impossible to overcome the poor script which generally leaves only the wartime melodrama and pyrotechnics for interest.
There is absolutely nothing positive about "INCHON" to talk about. The unedited version runs for nearly two and a half hours. It is a painful experience to watch this off-base and factually incorrect travesty. Furthermore, I find it extremely embarrassing to watch Laurence Olivier making a fool out of himself by appearing in this noisy and absurd garbage when he should have been finding time to redeem his reputation after starring in the Razzie-winning "THE JAZZ SINGER".Shame on everyone involved in this movie. It is extremely impossible to find a copy of "INCHON" at your local video store and no cable channel would dare run it, which is just as well. Trust me, you don't want to see this movie.My Rating - 0 out of 10