Has anyone seen this movie yet, "Tae Guk Gi"? It has been compared to the Korean version of

"Saving Private Ryan", though I believe SPR is more pro-war, whereas this movie is anti-war.

Basically, the plot is two brothers, one being older, a hardworking cobbler, and the other, a younger

scholar, are caught in the turmoil of the Korean War and drafted into the South Korean army. Prior to

being a soldier, the older brother and his fiance lived with his family, sans his father (dead),

whom owned both a shoe-shop and some sort of restaraunt or market. Anyways, the movie depicts life

prior to the war as extremely "hunk-dory" while showing an extremely emotional scene between the

brothers, their mother and the older brother's fiance. Anyways, the war breaks out, they get drafted and

so on and so forth. Watch the movie to find out the ending. However, the action scenes were filmed

with a very faithful sense of movement by the camera; everything is very jerky and you simply see

quick bits and pieces of bodies, fighting, etc. Interesting approach. I was just wondering on what the

ever-opinionated AR15 populus thought about the film. And sorry if this is a dupe... I obviously don't

have GD search.

- Kool-Aid (LCA tsxx37)

When this movie came out it was morelike a Korean film maker benchmarking SPR. From what I hear it pissed off South Korean conservatives AND North Koreans. So it did something ok.Overly dramatic, and a bit too long for my taste.

I bought a copy several months ago at a gun show.

It was a kick to hear Americans get cheered in the movie.

The one thing that bothered me was the hand to hand combat.  If you are close enough to wrestle with they are too close: you should have shot them sooner!

It was good, but some of the acting and plot twists were over the top.

The realism was better than most, and it's definately a good one to have in your collection.

the thing i didn't understand, was were these soldiers given any basic training at all?  the brothers get drafted, then all of a sudden they're at the front, with the older guy trying to convice the CO that his brother needs to be discharged due to his medical condition.  wouldn't this have really been sorted out in basic?

also, what was with the wounded guy going nuts and shooting the medics?  i didn't really understand that scene, did he just go crazy?

Quoted: the thing i didn't understand, was were these soldiers given any basic training at all?  the brothers get drafted, then all of a sudden they're at the front, with the older guy trying to convice the CO that his brother needs to be discharged due to his medical condition.  wouldn't this have really been sorted out in basic?

I think we must remember that this IS South Korea and they were being invaded by the North,

hence the draft. I'm not sure if they were administered any sort of basic, though.

- Kool-Aid (LCA tsxx37)

Excellent film and very well done IMHO.

Quoted: Excellent film and very well done IMHO.

+1 good movie.

I enjoyed it very uch.  Not really sure why it would be considered an anti war film.  I mean name one movie that is actually pro-war.  I thought it was good either way.  

Bumpity bump bump.

I bought a copy after hearing about it here.
I thought its a well done movie.  The way the director depicts the action is ok, kind of overacted but I just account that to being made for a Korean audience.  The characters' motivations are typically Korean also.

The part that really got me was after all the fighting when the townsfolk are rounding up the communist sympathizers.  They arrest the girlfriend who complains that she only went to the rallies to get food.  Very touching and worrisome.  I gues thier hatred of the communists was so great they lost sight of due process or commpassion, and started persecuting anyone and everyone who may have been even a little guilty, or not at all, just trying to get by in a bad time.

I watched it with the Korean language with subtitles, and the English overdub.  Definatley watch it in Korean, the overdub just did not work for me. YMMV

it was pretty good, it was made for Korean audiences, I didnt see any non Korean actors in the whole movie, they did mention US forces taking Inchon on the radio, but they didnt show any scenes of US military.

the special effects were similiar to the movie saving PVT Ryan, showing guys with limbs getting shot off, heads blown off , etc, bloody

I remember scene when they were getting food and one guy had a extra big Hershey chocolate bar and wrapper had a bar code on the back, I dont think they made them like that back in 1950?

it's not a bad movie, I liked it

Sucked, way over the top, he would have been dead 50 times over.

I actually bought my copy while in South Korea when I was there on business.
The guy I was doing business with (a Korean) recommended it to me and said it was very good.
I have no idea what political views he has, but anyway...

...after going through all kinds of hassle re-burning the discs to get rid of the idiotic region encoding,
so that I could actually watch them, I watched the movie and thought overall it was pretty good.

There were a few scenes with CGI that were pretty corny (I'm not a fan of CGI usually unless it's so well done you can't tell).
I didn't get an "anti-war" feeling out of the movie at all either.
I don't think I'd put it up there with SPR, but it's definitely worth watching.
As far as over-the-top, yes it was a little bit, but it was still entertaining.

the sound effects when firing the M1 Garands sounded like "pop guns" they should have made better sound effects for the small arms.

Hmm. Im interesting. Ill have to search for that one.

Quoted: the thing i didn't understand, was were these soldiers given any basic training at all?  the brothers get drafted, then all of a sudden they're at the front, with the older guy trying to convice the CO that his brother needs to be discharged due to his medical condition.  wouldn't this have really been sorted out in basic?

During the opening days of Korean war, there wasn't a chance for formal training. Every able bodies were drafted in haste. They probably were taught basics of firearm and use of grenades and was sent off to front line.

In this movie, that would have been Nakdong perimeter, the farthest communist pushed South before UN intervention.

RogerBall: The part that really got me was after all the fighting when the townsfolk are rounding up the communist sympathizers. They arrest the girlfriend who complains that she only went to the rallies to get food. Very touching and worrisome. I gues thier hatred of the communists was so great they lost sight of due process or commpassion, and started persecuting anyone and everyone who may have been even a little guilty, or not at all, just trying to get by in a bad time.

This is off the topic, but the actress killed herself in real life last year. She had chronic depression and took her own life.

Quoted: This is off the topic, but the actress killed herself in real life last year. She had chronic depression and took her own life.

Wow... that's so terrible. She was such a beautiful young woman. - Kool-Aid (LCA tsxx37)

What'd the NK's get pissed abt? The village massacre scene. I thought it was a pretty fair depiction of the sucktitude of war, and the human drama was good and not overpowering (*cough* War of the Worlds *cough*).

The only CGI that I thought sucked was the crashing F4 Corsair.

I finally found this movie in one of the local rental stores.

Man!! What a movie! Now I know why it's been raved about here for so long.

I didn't see an "anti-war" attitude in the movie either. I saw it more as a story of two brothers in a time of extreme violence (war). The anti-communist attitude was also a sign of the times, remember Senator McCarthy? The Reds wiping out whole villages sure didn't generate much good will, either.

It appeared to me all of the airplanes were CGI. Some scenes were better than others, but the crashing Corsair was the worst CGI scene in the movie. But then I don't imagine the producers had Steven Spielberg's budget either.

I will defiantly be adding this movie to my collection.

It is too bad about the young actress. She sure was a cute, young thing.

In before you get flamed by that goofy movie forum moderator.

Damn. I did a search and this was the only thread in 3 months. I forgot to see what forum this thread was in. Just....um....assumed it was the movie forum.

It was the blanks.

FREE

Quoted: the sound effects when firing the M1 Garands sounded like "pop guns" they should have made better sound effects for the small arms.

My wife is Korean, so we saw this movie as soon as we could get a DVD of it.  The lack of any basic training was probably typical-for a while, the fate of South Korea was hanging by a thread, and the gov't was desperate to get soldiers. You have to understand that in the years leading up to the war (1945-1950), the South was ruthlessly killing anyone they suspected of being a communist,just as the North was doing to non-communists.  Both sides committed plenty of atrocities. This movie really did not exaggerate anything too much.
  My wife's father was killed in the last few days of the war,so there was plenty of crying as we watched it. Won Bin, the actor who played the younger son, is a superstar over there, and he is currently serving in the Korean Army.