Inchon (film)

Inchon is a 1982 film directed by Terence Young about the Battle of Inchon during the Korean War.

The movie was panned by reviewers as overpriced and poorly-acted. Filmed over five years, Inchon lost an estimated 44.1 million USD. One of the major financial backers of Inchon was the Unification Church. Sun Myung Moon, the church's founder, was a "Special Advisor" to the film. After hearing that the movie was backed by the Unification Church, the United States Department of Defense, which had supplied 1,500 troops as extras, withdrew support for the movie.

Origin

The story of how Sun Myung Moon became involved in movie-making is almost certainly apocryphal: One day, Sun Myung Moon began crying and could not stop. To raise his spirits he took a trip to the movie theatre and the crying stopped. He saw this as a sign from God and resolved to make his own motion picture.

The reverend united with a Japanese businessman, Matsusaburo Sakaguchi, who wanted to put his money into a film. He proposed a multi-million dollar epic on the life of Jesus Christ; "Jesus of Nazareth" had recently been well-received. But Sun Myung Moon had other ideas. He remembered the UN forces landing at Inchon, and how the mastermind behind the landings, General Douglas MacArthur must have been inspired by God.

The making of the movie

From the start it was clear Inchon would not be a cheap enterprise. The cost was to be split more or less down the middle, with Matsusaburo Sakaguchi putting up half the money, and Sun Myung Moon covering the rest from his personal fortune. But neither could have foreseen the disasters that would eventually make it - for the time - one of the most expensive motion pictures ever made.

To shoot the movie they chose British director Terence Young, a veteran of three James Bond films and the successful adaptation of Wait Until Dark. The lead role of General Douglas MacArthur was given to Laurence Olivier, at the time experiencing something of a renaissance as a movie star. Olivier was to be paid one million dollars for his work, but would eventually earn more as the film went over schedule. Ben Gazzara would receive $450,000 for a secondary role, and Jacqueline Bisset, Richard Roundtree and David Janssen completed the primary cast.

As one of the world's finest actors, Olivier may have appeared a great choice, but his scenes of receiving divine inspiration proved laughable. Olivier had read that MacArthur wore makeup, but Olivier exaggerated his own makeup and consequently looked like a man in drag.

Disasters that beset the production included:

A typhoon that swept away a recreation of the lighthouse at Inchon, requiring it to be rebuilt at huge cost.
The beach landings at Inchon had to be redone after an assistant director accidentally sent the ships in the wrong direction, which ended up costing $2 million.
The scene where General Douglas MacArthur greets the crowds in his limousine had to be shot three times. The first time, there were not enough people in the crowd. The second time, the shots did not match the first version. Finally, the producers hired a studio in Dublin especially for the scene at a total cost of $3 million.

Reaction

The film was eventually shown at Cannes in a 140 minute version that was virtually booed off the screen. The film was re-edited to 105 minutes, losing all of Janssen's scenes. A massive publicity campaign was launched, to no avail. Aside from the atrocious reviews, audiences were afraid that the film was being used as part of a drive by the Unification Church to recruit new members. The New York Times said that Inchon "looks like the most expensive B-movie ever made."

Inchon - originally called Oh, Inchon - would end up costing $44 million. Some estimates have put the figure higher, at $65 million, or even as high as $104 million, which would make it one of the biggest flops of all time. The film took less than two million dollars at the box office, and as it was not released on video or DVD (aside from bootleg copies), nor are there any plans to in the foreseeable future, it has a very small chance of recouping even a fraction of its massive budget.

Because the film did not have the backing of a major studio, like United Artists' flop Heaven's Gate, Inchon is not often listed as an all-time box-office bomb. Matsusaburo Guichi never fulfilled his dream of making more movies, including an eleven-picture, one billion dollar adaptation of the Bible. It has always been insisted upon that Sun Myung Moon invested his own money in the production, and not that of the Unification Church. There are stories of members of cast and crew being paid in cash, but this was probably due to mistrust of the way the film was financed. Certainly, Olivier insisted on his money being paid in cash and delivered to him in a briefcase by helicopter every week.