Refreshing telling of a lost war

Rating: 9/10 (23 March 2006)

I am starting to become a fan of world cinema and with good reason.
Having recently seen City of God and before that Brotherhood of the Wolf I have started to see through the shallow pool that is Hollywood.
I can't remember how I heard about Brotherhood (easier to say than the proper name) but I am glad I bought it on the off chance.
I really had no idea what the Korean war was all about and my ignorance was totally shown up from seeing how large scale the war was and all the tragic circumstances surrounding it. Are we humans only good at killing each other? it seems we can't live without killing, a flaw I believe that will finally see us wiped off the planet in the maybe not so distant future.
Brotherhood does not try to be clever or over complicated. It is a simple story of brotherly love and the horrors and consequences of war. You see in true colours the effects a war has, physically and mentally. I found it realistic that the elder brother turned his back on his country as it showed as we know that blood is thicker than water (South Korea in this case) as all he believed in was a lie, or a lie from what he saw which was subjective but what was he to know.
A moving film which had me guessing till the end which brother was it that was discovered (shown at the beginning of the film) 50 odd years later in a shallow grave.
Great stuff - I highly recommend it if like me you are not fazed with reading subtitles while watching films, I grew up watching kung fu movies so my eyes are masters when it comes to foreign films.
Buy it.