A Great Insight of Life during the Korean War

Rating: 9/10 (5 April 2013)

The film's title is the name of the pre-war flag of the People's Republic of Korea, the flag of the Provisional People's Committee for North Korea as well as the current flag of South Korea. Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War is one of those war films that no matter what's the ideology or cause, these soldiers are fighting to keep their love ones alive. The movie is the story of two brothers, shoe shiner Jin-Tae Lee (Jang Dong-gun) and his 18 year old student brother, Jin-seok Lee (Bin Won) forced to fight in a war that both don't want to be in, when North Korea invades the South. Now the brothers are forced to fight along with each other, and later against each other as both men are tested by the horrors of war, and the deadly effects of it. The movie is very powerful and well done. Like other modern war drama, it's also reached a dramatic and tragic end. Its shows the true message about war. There are no winners in war, all that are forced to fight lead to nowhere, but self-destruction. The movie is a bit brutal, as there is no rest between the never ending violence and battle scenes in the film. When there are some rest, the movie turns the dramatic up to the point that the audiences watching this film still feels on edge. The movie is very gory, and there were some scenes that makes you want to look away due to its harsh realism of war. There were a bit of bad CGI, with the American Airplanes, but most of the action scene felt real. I feel it's a little too unrealistic when the brothers keep switching sides throughout the entire war from fighting with North Korea to South Korea and so for. I doubt that happened too often. Like I said before, there is no clear picture of whom good and who's evil. The movie is little about patriotism, as it is more about taking care of your family. Both nations are portray in gray with both armies doing many cruelty acts, that makes you wonder whom are we rooting for. The brothers characters are both equality flaw are both sink more and more into the madness of war. Still, the movie makes Jin-Tae Lee seek a little bit unstoppable. His bravery actions were kinda over the top, Rambo at times to the point, it lost it's realistic. He get a bit lost in the war. The other brother, Jin-Seok Lee developed from a young teenager into a harden soldier by the end of the film, but throughout the film, when something bad happens to him or his friends, he takes it out on his brother Jin-Tae Lee to the point where he can be a bit annoying. The supporting characters are introduce and kill off so quickly that they barely had any back story or development throughout the film. Honestly, I couldn't tell the different between them and the other background soldiers getting blown up, or killed off. Still, the movie has a good soundtrack and its opening and ending scenes reminds me of both, the films Saving Private Ryan and Letters of Iwo Jima. If you going to watch this film. I would choice to watch it with sub-titles rather than the English dub. My heart goes out to those anybody forced to fight in a war. This movie made me think a lot about war. Is war really necessary? So many blood-sheds and deaths of the innocent. When a war movie makes thinks about that. Then it's doing something right.