Grisly, emotive, Korean war movie

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2015)

This South Korean war movie was internationally distinguished after its popularity made it the most successful Korean film of all time...and it brings with it a reputation of gravitas and emotion that is not entirely without merit. Told in flashback, it's a tale of how two brothers are torn away from their family and forced to join the South Korean army. After engaging in lots of terrible missions, the elder brother becomes desensitised to the violence and turns as brutal as the enemy. When his fiancée is shot and he thinks his brother is killed, he transfers to the North Korean army, and the conclusion is set for an inevitable confrontation between the two siblings, who now fight on different sides.
This film is very well made, exquisitely shot and with some very good acting from the cast; the supporting actors and actresses are all good, but the real focus is on the two main brothers, and both are fine. Won Bin has the larger role as the younger brother who grieves over the disappearance of his sibling, but the best performance comes from Jang Dong-Kun, who gets to run the gamut of emotions from A-Z, starting off as a headstrong youth, become a valiant hero, turning embittered and entirely ruthless, and ending up as a crazed, almost possessed evil killing machine.
Much of the film is taken up with fighting, and the battles are as realistic and brutal as in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Crystal-clear camera-work throws you into the trenches as earth flies through the air from mortar strikes and bodies are repeatedly torn to pieces by the incoming gunfire. These parts of the movie are visceral and horrifying, recalling such films as BLACK HAWK DOWN; certainly the horror of warfare is brought across. The bodies of massacred villagers are booby-trapped to blow, hands and legs are blown off by mines and bullets, and in some cases, heads literally explode. Certainly the level of blood and guts makes this one of the grisliest war films I've watched.
The only real problem with this film is the nature of the narrative, which keeps jumping forward in time, offering visual scenarios of key scenes in the lives of the heroes. As such, the main character's transformation from South Korean hero to North Korean butcher is glossed over, and doesn't come across as believable. Some of the emoting is also a little bit over the top – I'm thinking the train sequence here, as the characters repeatedly cry for their mother. The director would have done well to hold back just a little. Some of the CGI work is also a little bit fake – I could deal with the landscapes, but the CGI aeroplanes are too much. Still, BROTHERHOOD is a great war film, equalling similar US-themed movies and teaching the west about a war that is sometimes forgotten about by those of us living outside of Asia.