very powerful war film

Rating: 8/10 (1 August 2005)

The Korean film "Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War" stands as one of the most unsparing and harrowing films about men engaged in armed conflict to come our way in many years.
"Tae Guk Gi" shows us the Korean War through the eyes of two brothers, Jin-tae and Jin-seok, both of whom are pulled away from their family and conscripted into the army right at the start of the conflict. Jin-tae feels very protective of his younger brother and devises a scheme to get himself a medal so that Jin-seok will be able to be sent home. Thus, Jin-tae begins to volunteer for dangerous assignments, much to Jin-seok's great fear and consternation. Over time, however, Jin-tae comes to savor his hero status, eventually becoming so desensitized to human suffering that he begins to commit atrocities of his own both on and off the battlefield. The film raises the issues of what it means to be a "hero" and of where loyalty to family as well as to country truly begin and end.
Alternately horrifying and heartbreaking, "Tae Guk Gi" is a war film done on an epic scale that, nevertheless, rarely loses focus on the intimate human drama at its core - even though the plotting leans a bit towards the artificial and the melodramatic at times (further heightened by a musical score that is far more soupy than it needs to be). Still, with battle scenes that are every bit as graphic, realistic and unflinching as those in "Saving Private Ryan," the film effectively captures the unrelenting savagery of the ugly business we call war.
The performances by Dong-Kun Jang and Bin Won, as the two literal brothers-in-arms, are moving and authentic, and the action scenes have an immediacy and scope that help the film override some of the weaknesses in the script. Astutely directed by Je-gyu Kang and superbly edited by Kyeong-hie Choi, "Tae Guk Gi" is a powerful film about war and the men - be they heroes or common soldiers - called upon to wage it.