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Swing Kids

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1:03

Swing Kids

Released Dec 21, 2018

2h 13m

Drama

Musical

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Popcornmeter

63%

Tomatometer

8 Reviews

96%

Popcornmeter

100+ Ratings

Soldiers at a POW camp plan a tap show to distract themselves and the prisoners from the hardships of the Korean War.

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Tim Cogshell

FilmWeek (LAist)

The history of this camp is actually true... I just wish somebody made a better movie about it.

Sep 13, 2019

Full Review

Guy Lodge

Variety

By the end, fancifully snappy dance numbers vie with grisly bullet ballet for top setpiece honors: Kang stages both with aplomb, leaving audiences caught between crying and cheering.

Dec 24, 2018

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Cary Darling

Houston Chronicle

"Swing Kids" is such a dizzying, anachronistic mash-up of genres and cultures -- tap-dancing musical, violent war movie, social-justice drama, and slapstick comedy -- that it deserves respect, even if it falls short as it strains to cover all these bases.

Rated: 3/5

Dec 21, 2018

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Clement Tyler Obropta

Film Inquiry

The film does for the Korean War what Life Is Beautiful did for the Holocaust - it injects verve and fun into very grim subject matter.

Jul 3, 2019

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Douglas Davidson

Elements of Madness

Combining the harshness of war with the exuberance of dance seems like mixing oil and water, yet ... [Swing Kids] is all at once powerfully evocative, undeniably charming, and completely heartbreaking.

Rated: 4.5/5

Jan 3, 2019

Full Review

James Marsh

South China Morning Post

An ill-fitting hodgepodge of half-baked ideas and unrealised potential.

Rated: 2/5

Jan 2, 2019

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Asha L

LITERALLY THE CHARACTERS FREAKING DIE LIKE WASTE OF MY TWO HOURS

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/07/25

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Calvin O

Swing Kids is a remarkable and unsettling fusion of brackets, philosophies and cultures. The impactful cinematography, the painstakingly choreographed tap dancing, and the hilarious sprinkles of visual humour that work so fantastically.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

12/29/24

Full Review

Sameir A

Swing Kids, set in a PoW camp, tell the story of a few prisoners who join the team of Tap Dancers organized by a man of color. The movie strongly questions how Idealism and other factors that divide human beings just for the political and financial exploitation of the powerful. A pretty good watch with some music, dance, comedy and drama.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

08/01/22

Full Review

Audience Member

This is a mash-up. But what an expansive list of things put together -- a prisoner of war camps in Korea, extraordinary tap dances, the power of art to heal and the horror of senseless killing and destruction born of lies and abstracted notions of what the world should be. Swing Kids shows what the world could be if art & love were given equal weight to guns and power politics. The pas de deux between 2 different characters at 2 points in the movie are extra-ordinary. Reviews that are not glowing must not like a movie that requires you to look below the surface to see a deeper sensibility. It is a powerful and important movie.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/15/23

Full Review

Audience Member

beautiful, some parts a bit strange. DO NOT WATCH IF YOU DONT LIKE SAD ENDINGS !! VERY SAD ENDING

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/01/23

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Audience Member

Fuck ideology! Good movie

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/23/23

Full Review

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Kang Hyeong-cheol

Director

D.O

Roh Gi-soo

Jared Grimes

Jackson

Park Hye-su

Yang Pan-rae

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Kang Byung-sam

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Swing Kids: Trailer 1

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Synopsis

Soldiers at a POW camp plan a tap show to distract themselves and the prisoners from the hardships of the Korean War.

Director: Kang Hyeong-cheol
Screenwriter: Kang Hyeong-cheol
Distributor: Well Go USA
Production Co: Annapurna Film
Genre: Drama, Musical
Original Language: Korean
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 21, 2018, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jun 18, 2019
Box Office (Gross USA): $216.6K
Runtime: 2h 13m

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