“What if [second world war escape epic] The Battleship Island was more like La La Land?” appears to have been the pitch behind Kang Hyeong-chul’s tap-dance-infused prisoner-of-war drama. However, Swing Kids lacks either the scale of Ryoo Seung-wan’s epic melodrama or the musical lilt of Damien Chazelle’s throwback Hollywood film; it is an ill-fitting hodgepodge of half-baked ideas and unrealised potential.
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