Director - Je-gyu Kang
Country of Origin - South Korea
Nick's Rating: (8 out of 10)
I guess you could call this the "Saving Private Ryan" of South Korean films. Not as bloody but, in my opinion, just as well written and acted. What I appreciated most about this movie was the South Korean perspective of the Korean War. We here in the U.S. hear so much about the Vietnam War and yet the Korean War gets put to the back burner time and time again in our education, so I took this movie as a personal learning experience. This movie is about two brothers and one's promise to protect the other during the war. They are polar opposites, so when it comes time to fight one is a born leader while the other just tries to survive. The one problem that I had with this film is that they portray the younger brother as considerably weaker and much more of a pacifist than his older brother, so much so that I got angry at his overall demeanor and kinda wanted him to just hurry up and die. Other than that the film is extremely intriguing. The visuals are very stunning and stay true to the grittiness of the battlefield. To observe how the Korean War evolved as different countries got involved (or uninvolved), as well as the evolution of the characters, makes this film well worth your time.
-Nick
