Review - Hero: Do You Hear The Korean People Sing?

Though Hero: The Musical, is being pushed as, "the first Korean Broadway-style musical to be shown overseas," it's really of a theatrical style firmly rooted in the West End. Commissioned to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the death of Korean freedom fighter, An Chunggun, Hero comes off at best as a well-intentioned imitation of the power-ballad heavy pop operas of Broadway's British invasion, frequently reminiscent of the revolutionary sexiness of Les Miserables and the military pageantry scenes of Miss Saigon.

Sung Hwa Chung is sufficiently heroic, strong-voiced and attractive in the title role, a young Korean who, with his young, attractive and strong-voiced followers, fought against Japanese occupation and planned an assassination of residence general Ito Hirobumi (Sung Gee Kim). When An Chunggun is captured after successfully pulling off the deed as the general disembarks at a train station, he demands to be treated as a prisoner of war, but instead is tried as a civilian by a Japanese court with the expected results.

To the credit of bookwriter/lyricist A Reum Han, the general is presented as a decent gentleman simply carrying out his own patriotic duty for his country and Kim sings the role with appealing nobility.

The real-life characters are mixed with an assortment of fictional ones, meant to represent the various Koreans who made the ultimate sacrifice for the cause but their stories tend to muck up the thinly-plotted second act. (One of them, a young girl named Lingling - played by Mi Do Jeon - has a story so familiar they may as well have named the character Éponine.) This is a musical where a character is shot at close range and manages to sing an entire ballad before dying. Soon after, another character begins a song by stating she's going to commit suicide and it takes several repetitive minutes of singing before... you know.

While the story certainly seems a worthy subject for a musical, composer Sang Joon Oh's derivative work, heavy on theatrical Euro-pop, seems too recycled to stir up any emotions. The text, shown in supertitled translations above the Korean-sung performance, is filled with forced poetics like, "One shot fired today and tomorrow is history."

Despite the shortcomings of the material, director Ho Jin Yun, directs a large and technically complicated production with swift fluidity; the one awkward moment coming at the climatic assassination scene, where, despite an abundance of guards pushing the rushing crowd back, An Chunggun gets a clear shot at his target by simply stepping downstage of everyone.

Designers Dong Woo Park (sets), Ji Yeon Kim (costumes), Yun Young Koo (lights) and Kwang Nam Park (projections) contribute the best work of the evening. The look of the musical - with settings ranging from a simple evening in white birch woods to an elaborately detailed 1900s train car - is visually beautiful without ever overwhelming the story.

Unfortunately, the orchestra is recorded and, despite a fine-singing company, sound designer Do Kyung Kwon chooses to enhance some of the more dramatically sung moments with obviously increased volume, intruding on any natural connection between the audience and the performers. But then, they did say they were doing a Broadway-style musical.

Photos of Sung Hwa Chung and Company by Kwan-Hee Ryu.

Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Click here for Michael Dale's Twitterized theatre reviews.

"An actor is a sculptor who carves in snow."

-- Edwin Booth

The grosses are out for the week ending 8/28/2011 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: MASTER CLASS (4.4%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (3.8%), MEMPHIS (1.3%), FOLLIES (0.8%), MARY POPPINS (0.7%), CHICAGO (0.2%),

Down for the week was: ANYTHING GOES (-28.3%), SISTER ACT (-9.0%), HAIR (-8.6%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-5.5%), ROCK OF AGES (-4.9%), WICKED (-4.0%), CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (-3.2%), JERSEY BOYS (-2.1%), PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT (-2.1%), THE ADDAMS FAMILY (-1.8%), MAMMA MIA! (-1.7%), HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (-1.6%), THE LION KING (-1.2%), BABY IT'S YOU! (-1.1%), SPIDER-MAN TURN OFF THE DARK (-0.6%),

To post a comment, you must register and login.