Tag: Korean War

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Shiri
(Swiri,
쉬리)

Director – Kang Je-Gyu – 1999 – South Korea – Cert. 18 – 125m

****

South Korean intelligence men track a North Korean sniper who has gone to Earth – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

This South Korean box office success story is a hard-boiled action movie, an Asian cross between Die Hard John McTiernan, 1988) and Nikita (Luc Besson, 1990) which could probably have been made in no other country. The North Korean villains in recent Bond outing Die Another Day (Lee Tamahori, 2002) seem saintly by comparison with the brainwashed, gun-toting mercenaries here, one of whom – deadly female sniper Hee (Kim Yun-jin) – goes to Earth following a series of assassinations of South Korean government officials.

But when some years later, Southern intelligence men Ryu (Han Suk-kyu) and Lee (Song Kang-ho) prove unable to prevent several likely targets from being killed by notorious Northern terrorist Park (Choi Min‑sik), the vanished Hee is their primary suspect for pulling the trigger.

Made in 1999, it originally concerned a slightly post-millennial future, which aspect has been lost with the film taking some four years to reach these shores.… Read the rest

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Save the Green Planet!
(Jigureul Jikyeora!,
지구를 지켜라!)

Director – Jang Joon-Hwan – 2003 – South Korea – Cert. 18 – 118m

*****

NSFW

Convinced that a corporate boss is an alien who killed his mother, a man takes him prisoner and tortures him to find out his race’s plans for planet Earth – plays alongside Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

Lee Byong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun) is convinced that corporate CEO Kang Man-shik (Baek Yoon-shik) is not only responsible for the death of his mother but also is an alien spy set to communicate with his extra-terrestrial superiors at the next full moon in seven days time. So, aided by girlfriend Sooni (Hwang Jung-min), Lee kidnaps Kang and brings him back to his underground workshop beneath his hilltop home near which he keeps bees in hives. Lee wants to hear the truth from Kang’s own lips, and is prepared to torture him to get it.

CEO Kang is clearly not a nice guy – he is obviously raking in the money, yet we watch him driven home drunk by a valet who he shamelessly short changes on his fare.… Read the rest

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Mist
(Angae,
안개)

Director – Kim Soo-yong – 1967 – South Korea – 78m

****

A married man leaves Seoul to visit his dull hometown for a few days, where he embarks on a brief affair with a music teacher from the local school – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

Yun Gi-jun (Shin Seong-il from The Barefooted Young, Kim Ki-duk, 1964) is bored with his job. He sits at his desk in a huge office looking at the paperwork, seeing it crawling with insects. But when others enter the office, they don’t see any of that, so it’s clearly all in his head. In many ways, that sets the scene for the mood of this heavily introspective piece which makes much use of voice over and flashback, as Gi-jun takes time out in his hometown of Mujin, for which he claims not to feel much affection but which is nevertheless full of personal history and memories for him.

We see him at home with his wife as she straightens his tie, and later as she brings her rich father over to the house.… Read the rest

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The Marines
Who Never Returned
(Doraoji
Anneun Haebyong,
돌아오지 않는 해병)

Director – Lee Man-hee – 1963 – South Korea – 110m

***1/2

A small unit of Korean soldiers pushing North in the Korean War adopt an orphaned girl as a mascot before being all but wiped out – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

This opens impressively with what looks like stock footage of armoured cars and infantry coming up a beach. Soldiers race across open ground to a safe shooting position, briefly going back a couple of dozen or so feet to drag two of their wounded comrades forward into comparative safety.

They move on to a derelict, war-torn town. Burning buildings, half-collapsed sections of walls (one of which partially topples as they wait momentarily beside it). One soldier advances across a patch of open ground, gun in hands, grenade at the ready, watched by his expectant comrades from their positions of cover. Time seems to stand still. Eventually he lobs the grenade and the others move up behind him. He drops into a ditch. Ahead of him, a civilian woman comes onto the waste ground with her small daughter.… Read the rest

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Nowhere to Hide
(Injeong Sajeong
Bol Geot Eobtda,
인정사정 볼 것 없다)

Director – Lee Myung-se – 1999 – South Korea – Cert. 15 – 100m, 113m

***1/2

A cop determinedly pursues a gangland killer in a city where, since he committed the murder for which he is bing hunted, it always appears to be heavily raining – plays in Echoes In Time | Korean Films of the Golden Age and New Cinema which runs from Monday, October 28th until the end of 2024 at BFI Southbank

Effectively a four-hander – an impulsive detective, his partner on the force, a ruthless killer gangster and his long-suffering girlfriend. Like a slobbish, South Korean version of Chow Yun-fat without the charm, Park Joong-Hung is the Oriental action movie homage-named Inspector Woo, who before the titles have rolled has pursued a black-clad gang into an underground train for a machete fight, shot in stylish, bleached black and white for no apparent reason.

The ground is covered in Autumn leaves, recalling The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970). The downtown location of public stairway 40 Steps has a schoolgirl look up and see it begin to rain, the torrential downpour continuing for the two months and more of the remainder of the narrative. A man leaves his car to ascend the steps; halfway up, he approaches another man (Song Young-chang) and kills him, even as the victim stretches out his hand in a futile attempt to keep his murderer’s knife at bay.… Read the rest

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Beyond Utopia

Director – Madeleine Gavin – 2023 – US – Cert. 15 – 115m

*****

North Koreans flee their repressive country over the Chinese border and through several communist countries, where repatriation would mean imprisonment, torture and possibly death – heartstopping documentary is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 27th

Whether you’re coming to the subject of North Korea cold or whether you already know a little about the subject from the documentary Camp 14: Total Control Zone (Marc Weise, 2012), the animated feature True North (Eiji Han Shimizu, 2020) or Korean War movies like Operation Chromite (John H. Lee, 2016) or Nambugan: North Korean Partisan In South Korea (Chung Ji-Young, 1990), this contemporary take on the North Korean refugee experience throws much fresh light on the subject.

To augment its twin central narratives – two entirely separate stories of North Koreans attempting to escape their country – director Gavin helpfully breaks them up with an intermittent primer on North Korea. Much of this comes from Hyeonseo Lee, who fled the country over 20 years ago and has subsequently talked about it in TED and other public speaking forums. Lee was the producer’s original intended subject for the film, which changed considerably as director Gavin began researching the subject.… Read the rest

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Nambugun:
North Korean Partisan
In South Korea
(Nambugun,
南部軍 / 남부군)

Director – Chung Ji-Young – 1990 – South Korea – LEAFF Cert. 15 – 157m

*****

Gritty account of the Korean War based on the memoirs of a North Korean soldier – plays as part of a strand showcasing director Chung Ji-Young at the 2023 London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) which runs from Wednesday, October 18th to Sunday, October 29th

Based on the Korean War memoirs of Lee Tae (Ahn Sung-ki), a former North Korean news agency correspondent who fought for the North Korean partisans, this is a long and gruelling account of the Korean War, a South Korean production exploring a North Korean perspective. We rarely see inside the ranks of the South Korean forces. The partisans are all ‘comrades’ and women as well as men number among their ranks.

Inevitably, romantic attachments occur, although these are frowned upon and quickly quashed by superior officers. Which leaves separated parties desperate for news of their transferred objects of affection.

One particularly arresting sequence has Northern partisans shooting at Southern soldiers across an area of farmland until a child, seemingly oblivious to the very concept of warfare, wanders into the crossfire area. Both sides halt their shooting and come to a recognition of the humanity of the other.… Read the rest

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Hunt
(Heon-teu,
헌트)

Director – Lee Jung-jae – 2022 – South Korea – Cert. – 121m

****1/2

Two top KCIA operatives, each heading up his own department, both come to believe that the North Korean mole they are hunting is the other – out in cinemas Friday, November 4th; opened the London East Asia Film Festival (LEAFF) as part of a strand of films celebrating actor Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game) which ran in cinemas from Wednesday, October 19th to Sunday, October 30th

Two Korean intelligence men are sitting in a car. One asks the other riddles.

What’s a war in space? Star Wars.

What’s a war in winter? Cold War.

What’s a neverending war? Korean War.

A little background history will add to your enjoyment of this fictional thriller set against the backdrop of actual historical events.

In 1979, a South Korean coup d’état established the country’s fourth dictatorship since WW2. In 1980, with martial law declared, the Gwangju Uprising saw a battle between the military and ordinary citizens in the town of Gwangju in which at least 200 civilians were killed. In 1987, student protests lead to the overthrow of the Fifth Republic Of South Korea (1981-87) and free elections.… Read the rest

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The Battle
At Lake Changjin II
aka
Water Gate Bridge
(Zhang Jin Hu,
长津湖之水门桥)

Director – Tsui Hark – 2022 – China – Cert. 15 – 153m

**

Ill-considered sequel to box office barnstorming, Chinese war movie fails to match the emotional engagement and excitement of the original – out in cinemas on Friday, February 11th

After the exciting and energetic original, this sequel is a disappointment. It has the same expertise of CG special effects as its predecessor. However the cast is cut down, many of the memorable characters having died heroically in the first film, and there’s no attempt to replace them. Similarly, the spectacular locations are fewer in number because there’s no journey from home through different regions, so this has a smaller geographical palette to play with.

The cast of characters issue would be easy enough to fix within the war genre: members of a military unit die, others come to the fore to replace them in the vacuum created. But no, here all we get are People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) 7th Company commander Wu Qianli (Wu Jing from The Wandering Earth, Frant Gwo, 2019, and sequels) and his younger brother Wu Wanli (Jackson Lee) and no real attempt to further develop their relationship under fire. The two characters are just there, and the audience is expected to carry over their emotional investment from the first film without the second one providing any reason for doing so.… Read the rest

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The Battle
At Lake Changjin
(Zhang Jin Hu,
长津湖)

Directors – Chen Kaige, Dante Lam, Tsui Hark – 2021 – China – Cert. 15 – 176m

*****

Chinese war movie which has barnstormed the global box office does exactly what it says on the tin – out in cinemas on Friday, November 19th

There is a history of war films with a cast of thousands being directed by several (usually three) directors in an attempt to portray campaigns with huge military logistics on the screen. Probably the best known are The Longest Day (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernard Wicki, 1962) about the World War Two Allied invasion of Normandy and Tora! Tora! Tora! (Richard Fleischer, Toshio Matsuda, Kinji Fukasaku, 1970) about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Both of those Western (and, as it happens, Twentieth Century Fox) movies presented both sides of the conflict by hiring directors from the different countries concerned.

The big difference between them and Chinese global box office phenomenon The Battle At Lake Changjin is that although the latter film deals with a conflict in which the Chinese are pitted against the Americans, all three directors are Chinese. Tsui (Zu Warriors, 1983; Once Upon A Time In China, 1991) at least has some working knowledge of America, having studied film in Texas.… Read the rest