Great and haunting Korean war drama

Rating: 9/10 (2 June 2005)

When I watched this film, I didn't know what to expect from a Korean war movie, for Korean and Asian films in general, that I had watched before have always been kind of special, not to say strange in style and story (f.ex. Oldboy).
But "Taegukgi" doesn't rank behind any American war film. Far from it!
"Taegukgi" even improves and enriches the genre of war films. The battle scenes don't have to hide behind "Saving private Ryan", several scenes are even more drastic and pitiless and take away the spectators' breath. "Saving private Ryan" is probably the one American war film mostly similar to "Taegugki", but I liked "Taegukgi" even better, because it does not only show one aspect of war. Films like "Schindler's List", "Saving Private Ryan" or "Der Untergang" only show one aspect of war, either the brutality and absurdity of war itself, or the political motivation of the adverse parties or the fate of the people.
"Taegukgi" perfectly combines all those aspects into a haunting and touching story of a Korean family whose happy situation is destroyed by the cruelty of war. We get to know two Korean brothers that live together with their mother, one brother's girlfriend and her brothers and sisters. At the beginning life is enjoyable and hopeful,one brother works on his dream to own a shoe shop of his own and the other brother is very gifted prepares for his studies. The family is full of hopes and plans for the future, which are destroyed by the sudden irruption of war. The spectator gets a much better feeling for the cruelty of war, because he is really involved by the family's fate.
Apart from that, we also learn about the (lacking) motivation of the south and north Korean nation respectively for their behavior. The merging of all those elements lets the spectator conceive what war is about. This is the main advantage of the "Taegukgi", it perfectly conveys the absurdity and brutality of war to the spectator. The only weak point of the film is that it gets a touch too solemn at a scene at the end, but that is nothing compared to single-handed heroic deeds in American war films.
"Taegukgi" is not only an Asian alternative to Hollywood war films, it is a greatly acted and brilliantly pictured touching war drama,that never slides into clichés and tells of a mostly forgotten war and the fates and lives it claimed.