REVIEW: ‘The Restless’ (DVD – Genius Products)

Last year, Genius Products, the same company responsible for distributing TWC’s Dragon Dynasty releases put out a solid DVD version of Korean director Jo Dong-oh’s romantic fantasy actioner THE RESTLESS, starring MUSA’s Jung Woo-sung, with action choreography by THE CITY OF VIOLENCE star Jung Doo-hung.

The single-disc release features original Korean 5.1 audio with optional English subtitles, an anamorphic presentation of a slightly cropped 2.35:1 print, and a nice little collection of three behind-the-scenes featurettes.

My only complaint is that Genius doesn’t bother to list the leading cast on the cover. These films will never gain traction in the U.S. unless distributors get their act together and start building up the foreign talent, even if that means starting from scratch. Although in this case they could have built on MUSA which has been released here already.

“Making of The Restless” (52 minutes) - Korean-language featurette with English subtitles features interviews with writer-director Jo Dong-oh, cinematographer Kim Young-ho, and lead cast members. Not featured is action director Jung Doo-hung or any of the production design team although they are acknowledged. There is lots of behind-the-scenes footage with some action scenes featured. Not surprisingly, the choreography looks more complicated and interesting uncut and raw than it does tightly edited in the finished production.

“Reincarnation in 49 Days” (10 minutes) – This is an additional 10 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage mixed with comments from Jo and Kim Young-ho. What’s interesting about this segment is that Jo talks about his influences, his original plans to make this movie a trilogy and the limitations of making a fantasy movie in a country unaccustomed to the genre.

“Production Design” (12 minutes) – As the title suggests, this segment focuses on technical and visual aspects of the production, largely the digital effects work and costuming by Emi Wada.

Format: Region 1 NTSC DVD
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 Widescreen (2.30:1)
Audio: Korean 5.1
Subtitles: English
Length: 105 minutes
Release Date: June 17, 2008

Related Topics: DVD, fantasy, Genius Products, The Restless (2006), Wuxia