Flawed, a bit clichéd, even manipulative, but still good

Rating: 8/10 (26 March 2005)

Clearly inspired and influenced by "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), "Tae Guk Gi" is, in many ways, the film Steven Spielberg's war epic wanted to be and should have been. Kang Je-Gyu's often brutal film about the Korean War owes much to that visceral WWII film, but I found it more engaging, moving and emotionally powerful than Spielberg's highly praised movie.
"Tae Guk Gi" isn't perfect. But its attributes outweigh its flaws.
What works are its two main characters. Jang Dong-Kun (as Jin-tae) and Won Bin (as Jin-sock) are utterly believable as two brothers who dote on each other and find themselves in an untenable situation.
Director Kang Je-Gyu knows how to orchestrate action sequences, as he proved in "Shiri" (1999). Here, again, he fills the film with terrific action. He gives the film a sense of grittiness that would make Sam Fuller proud and choreographs a shoot-out sequence that clearly pays homage to the great Sam Peckinpah. And Peckinpah would have been proud. The battle scenes are as graphic and emotionally devastating as one could get in a movie.
What's interesting is that "Tae Guk Gi" doesn't take sides. Kang Je-Gyu depicts the insanity of war and how innocent people can get sucked up in its vortex. Here, the South Koreans are as ruthless and vicious as the North Koreans. He also takes great pains to show how patriotism can warp people's sensibilities - a lesson for all of us in these jingoistic, warmongering times in the U.S., where critics of the Iraq War and this administration are quickly dubbed as being unpatriotic and war hawks wrap themselves in the American flag and excuse unconscionable behavior.
The flaws of "Tae Guk Gi" could easily be linked to the film's Hollywood trappings. In his attempt to emulate "Saving Private Ryan," Kang Je-Gyu adopts some of that film's storytelling techniques, such as a framing device.
The trouble with framing devices such as this is that when a film begins with a central character at a later age and then flashes back to his youth, it's impossible to put us on tenterhooks when that character is in danger. We know he survives because we've seen him as an older person. "Tae Guk Gi" would have worked fine without the prologue. The director should have just kept the coda, which is moving and believable.
In fairness to Kang Je-Gyu, he doesn't tell his story from the wrong person's point-of-view as Spielberg did in "Saving Private Ryan." Also, unlike in that film, the characters in "Tae Guk Gi" don't come off as conventional stereotypes. We care about the two brothers and what happens to them, even though one brother's character arc seems abrupt and a bit too convenient.
If "Tae Guk Gi" proves one thing, it's that Hollywood's influences stretch worldwide and infuse themselves into the work of foreign filmmakers, too. The flaws of "Tae Guk Gi" are that some moments represent the hokey trappings of war films, clichés we've seen in countless other war movies and ones we hope filmmakers would eschew.
I'm sure every battlefield had its sitting-around-the-fire moments of camaraderie. But anyone who's seen war movies knows exactly what will happen in those moments. We know who will survive, who won't. And in these moments, "Tae Guk Gi" doesn't do anything differently than a typical Hollywood war movie.
Even though the film runs about 10 minutes too long, "Tae Guk Gi" has much going for it. Thanks to the characters and some sensationally well-done sequences, the film manages to overcome most of its clichés and soap opera moments to give us a strikingly powerful film.