A Movie You Might Have Missed #84 — The Admiral: Roaring Currents

It's been 12 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

Based on a true story, this is the astonishing tale of a legendary battle against overwhelming odds: the embattled Koreans with 12 ships against the invading Japanese navy with 300 ships. And also of the extraordinarily talented Admiral Yi  Sun-sin who masterminded a victory. 

We'd never heard of this admiral or battle because it is from halfway around the world and long ago. It's always nice to find another fascinating story from history while you're watching a great movie. 

It was well acted, directed, and edited so that I could not only follow the naval battles but tell apart key characters who, to my unschooled eyes, were hard to tell apart because of unfamiliar uniforms. I especially liked the Admiral's son who is learning tactics and whose reactions mirror ours. The spy and his wife also were favorites of ours, especially as their importance to the battle was revealed.

Hansan: Rising Dragon  came out recently which is a prequel of another of the younger Admiral Yi's lauded battles. And a third is planned. I'm on board for all of them. 

We got the dvd from our library which had subtitles so we got the all the actors' original intonations. I understand that it originally streamed with dubbed English. It's available to rent on Amazon.