Brotherhood of War (2004)
Mar. 30th, 2015 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamer_easy태극기 휘날리며 (Taegeukgi Hwinallimyeo) aka Taegukgi, directed by Kang Je-gyu, starring Jang Dong-gun and Won Bin as two brothers drafted into the South Korean army at the time of the Korean War*.
For me, this movie was too sentimental to be really great. Having said that, I've never seen anything which so powerfully showed what war is: chaos. Men desperately trying to reduce each other's bodies, these orderly configurations of parts, to randomised shreds and chunks. On and off the battlefield, this breakdown in the order of the body is mirrored by the breakdown of law, morality, and simple fairness, with the summary executions of POWs and civilians; and finally by brutal madness.
The other thing I want to mention is the film's recreation of pre-war Seoul - a big town, with signs in Chinese characters (Hanja?), people wearing traditional dress, etc. By the end of the movie the place is wrecked, of course, but there are signs of hope, such as an open-air school in the rubble.
(I've now seen enough Korean movies and TV that I'm starting to recognise actors. There's a chap in this who was also in Chuno, and Bin Woo was the ajusshi in Ajusshi (aka The Man From Nowhere.)
* Turns out this is what the war is called in SK as well as the Anglosphere. (Did they get the term from us?) Compare what the Vietnam War is called in Vietnam: the American War.
For me, this movie was too sentimental to be really great. Having said that, I've never seen anything which so powerfully showed what war is: chaos. Men desperately trying to reduce each other's bodies, these orderly configurations of parts, to randomised shreds and chunks. On and off the battlefield, this breakdown in the order of the body is mirrored by the breakdown of law, morality, and simple fairness, with the summary executions of POWs and civilians; and finally by brutal madness.
The other thing I want to mention is the film's recreation of pre-war Seoul - a big town, with signs in Chinese characters (Hanja?), people wearing traditional dress, etc. By the end of the movie the place is wrecked, of course, but there are signs of hope, such as an open-air school in the rubble.
(I've now seen enough Korean movies and TV that I'm starting to recognise actors. There's a chap in this who was also in Chuno, and Bin Woo was the ajusshi in Ajusshi (aka The Man From Nowhere.)
* Turns out this is what the war is called in SK as well as the Anglosphere. (Did they get the term from us?) Compare what the Vietnam War is called in Vietnam: the American War.
