Sheesh. spoiler alert in IMDb's plot outline

Rating: 8/10 (11 January 2013)

This is a very good film, but whatever you do, don't read IMDb's plot outline (as of today Jan 12, 2013) because it pretty much ruins it.
The beauty of this movie is how it takes unexpected turns, beginning as a run-of-the-mill war story but slowly morphing into a complex epic of intense personal and political conflicts. That's all you need to know. And you certainly don't need to know how it ends!
So let's not talk about plot. Instead I'll focus on the overall presentation. Like I said, it starts out very straightforward, seemingly predictable, but stick with it because things heat up. "Tae Guk Gi" gives a glimpse of what war is really about: not necessarily honor and good vs. evil, but more realistically it paints a Machiavellian perspective where survival and individual interests are the real guts. (Oh and speaking of guts, you can expect to see a lot of them. Lots of realistic violence, so be prepared.). Anyway as I was saying, this film uses an interesting trick of painting both sides as either "good" or "evil", thus reducing the ideology of war to irrelevant. No one really cares when bullets are flying. At one point, a character reveals that a decorated war hero "doesn't even know the difference between communism and democracy!" And that resounding statement is what makes this such a powerful film which makes an effective anti-war statement.
Many great films have commented on the madness of war. Among the best are "None But the Brave" with Frank Sinatra, "Welcome to Dongmakgol" another excellent Korean War picture, the Russian masterpiece "Ballad of a Soldier", the Brando film "The Young Lions", and now I'm happy to add "Tae Guk Gi" to my list of faves. Each of these films has its own unique angle. This movie's angle is particularly unsettling, and that's why you must see it.