two brothers caught up in the Korean war

Rating: 6/10 (11 February 2007)

I picked up Tae Guk Gi because I've never seen a movie about the Korean War, and thought it would be interesting to see one made by Koreans.
Tae Guk Gi surprised me in that the effects were great! - exploding shells in trenches, crossfire spitting up dirt on the lip of foxholes, realistic wounded, etc. So was the acting of the two brothers - I thought they were genuine performances.
I was really surprised though, that at the time of writing this, 43% of people gave this film 10 out of 10. I mean, come on! Do that many people actually think no war movie since, or in the future, will be better than Tae Guk Gi? A couple of the problems I had with it: 1) The Rambo-esquire scenes with older brother repeatedly getting "lucky" dodging enemy fire were a little over the top - I mean, I can believe you can be lucky like that once, but not repeatedly. 2) The two brothers stopping for dramatic dialogue in the middle of two battalions in hand-to-hand combat was a little hard to believe. 3) a couple of the scenes felt forced, for example, all the soldiers in their unit spontaneously introducing themselves clearly for the benefit of the viewer, and I promptly forgot three-quarters of their names anyway.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the film and would recommend it to others - but it didn't blow me away. No matter what the hype says, 10 years from now it will not be regarded as highly as titans of the genre like Apocalypse Now, Deer Hunter or Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. But, I realize that at least some of the 10 million Koreans who went to see it will probably disagree with me.