Tags

, ,

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a promotional poster this crammed.

I went to the movie premier of the Korean war movie, ’71 Into the Fire’ last night, and returned home at 10 p.m.

The movie ended amidst several sobbing and tearful faces of women, and poker-faced males and few teenagers who slept until the action scene. However, it could be heard later among the middle-aged males that there were several flows in the movie.

And indeed, this movie is not perfect.

This movie is based on a true event during the Korean war. On June 25, 1950, 71 student soldiers were left behind in a school in Pohang to defend the area against the North Korean enemies, while the main forces left to Nakdong River to face major assault.

This is all the movie is about, with no cheap romance or side story included. This story of 71 student soldiers can be dramatic, intense, and emotional; however, some tedious, unnecessary scenes, forced emotional moments, and several other shortcomings bring down what could be a great movie.

The movie starts out with similar layout as Steven Spielburg’s Saving Private Ryan, with an intense battle in the beginning that is bigger in the scale than any other scenes until the climatic battles at the end. While it was intense, the environment felt a bit too claustrophobic; the entire battle scene is taken mostly in one big alley of a suburban town. Along with typical, and occasionally comical, Asian actors’ overreactions from getting hit by bullets (like bodies jerking right and left when hit by only one bullet, jerking to right when hit on the left side, and even jerking before hit these ‘bullet overreactions,’ as I like to call it, are present throughout the entire movie.) , made the scene another typical battle scene that was supposed to make the audiences wince from realism of the war.

Similar instances also appear throughout the movie, in forms of forced emotional moments. While it is true that I was emotional during some parts of the movie, it was from thoughts of my fellow Koreans, especially my fellow students, sacrificing themselves in order to help liberate the country. Now that I look back at it, I can’t help but to think that, in eyes of foreigners, the moments would look forced.

Also, in my opinion, the two main actors, TOP, and Kwon Sang-woo, shouldn’t have been the main characters of the movie. While their acting were acceptable if not good, their tough, good-looking-guy characters ruined many scenes that could’ve been very emotional if played by actors who looked more like the students at the time. I couldn’t help but to think that the two actors were casted only to draw fangirls to the movie.

Another thing I wanted to point out was the props. Although I had not realize initially while watching the movie, after the movie was over, my dad pointed out that there were many mixed-up props, like North Koreans using American tanks and M-1. Indeed, as I researched after getting back home, I saw that they indeed were using American tanks and sometimes even M-1 Garand, both of which were used exclusively by allied forces. Although the most would not have realized it, it would greatly affect the realism of the movie from those who knew.

However, there are several great moments in the movie (one of which involves wannabe-gangster trios and a grenade), and several emotional moments that were NOT forced, makes this movie stand out among many other average movies; the fact that it was first big-budget war movie in Korea since the movie Tae Guk Gi in 2004, also helped bringing the publicity.