After battling a fierce group of demonic forces, Yi-Gwak collapses from the effects of a poisoned wine glass. He wakes up later to find himself in a strange and unusual city, a place that he has never seen before. As he talks with a friendly stranger, he slowly comes to the conclusion that he has awaken in the land of Joongcheon, a Buddhist purgatory, where spirits remain for 49 days until they are reincarnated back to Earth.

Not only has he landed in the afterlife, but he encounters his deceased wife. His deceased wife is now reincarnated as So-Hwa, a member of the White Repears that defends Joongcheon from evil forces. Soon, all hell breaks loose in Joongcheon when the demonic forces invades Joongcheon and tries to capture the Holy Stone that is in the possession of So-Hwa. Yi-Gwak must now fight the evil forces to save Joongcheon and maintain the cycle of life that will ultimately save the Earth.

The Restless was rightfully a colossal failure at the Korean box office during last year’s Christmas holiday season. The movie was hyped up to be a visual spectacle and in some ways the movie provided impressive visuals, but the filmmakers simply neglected to write a compelling story behind all that visual wizardry.

Those visuals, although not on the same level as Curse Of The Golden Dragon, had its moments, particularly in a handful of epic fight scenes. Two of the most memorable scenes would have been with Yi-Gwak slashing his way through a massive army of demons and the other scene featured Yi-Gwak battling against two brothers that possessed Dr. Octagon like abilities. I did enjoy watching the brothers fly through the air via a steel chain tentacles that flew out of their backs. That was “Gnarly dude” but unfortunately those scenes amounted to only 10 minutes of the film.

Come to think of it the first 10 minutes of The Restless was actually quite promising as well. The movie started off with entertaining action sequences and then Yi-Gwak awakening to find himself in Midheavan. Problems quickly manifested itself right around there. Yi-Gwak’s love interest Yon-Hwa appeared in an outfit that looked like a Halloween costume purchased from the local dollar store. It didn’t help matters that the lady that played Yon-Hwa, Tae-hee Kim, was stuck with a perpetual teary eyed expression throughout the entire film. For someone that was supposed to be such a valiant fighter, it would have helped if she didn’t always look like she was on the brink of tears. Set pieces, particular the scene where Yi-Gwak bathed in mystical waters, looked awful. I could have sworn the set piece used in that scene, was rummaged from an Ebay auction, selling off “the Clash of The Titans” set pieces – from the 1981 version.

That’s not to say that all the set pieces looked dismal. In fact later in the film when Yi-Gwak and So-Hwa landed in the hidden city, the visuals looked quite sumptuous. Oh and those fight scenes were pretty good as well.

The story? Well it was a mess. Most of the important facts were spoken of briefly or not at all. I never quite knew what was so special about the Holy Stone or how Sir Bun-Chu attained his powers. Maybe I slept through those scenes. Furthermore, Hyo was in love with Yi-Gwak, but you would have never known it from the brief flashback scenes. The relationship between Yi-Gwak and So-Hwa was equally off the mark. Although So-Hwa lost her memory, I did wonder why Yi-Gwak just didn’t explain to her what happened in her past life? Tae-hee Kim probably could do well in a Korean romance comedy, but she was so miscast in the role of So-Hwa. Come to think of it, it often looked like the sword she was holding would fall out of her hands because it was to heavy.

Anyways I didn’t think very highly of the Restless. If anything, watching the Restless made me want to watch Musa : The Warrior one more time. If you like fantasy / martial arts / action films and don’t care much about a good script than you should certainly check out The Restless. Otherwise skip this one because you will feel extremely restless.