A true brotherhood story

Rating: Null/10 (26 January 2016)

There's a chaos that surrounds the film - this is a war movie that revels in the insanity and confusion of battle - but the chaos strikes hardest in the first half hour. It's here that the locals, caught off guard by the invasion, are shuffled into refugee status in what plays, rightfully so, like a nightmare. The nightmare only grows when soldiers drop by and force all men of the proper age to enlist, no exceptions. The film grips us hard in these scenes, these terrifyingly real scenes, and our heart breaks as we remember that the army doing the forced draft is on our side. Just as American movies have at times reminded us of the dark pages in U.S. history, so now does Tae Guk Gi remind us of the darker actions of the Korean War.
From here, the plot places itself on the brink of meandering for two more hours, and yet while the movie pushes its epic length with no clear ending in sight, it's a meandering that's kept well in check; there's not a scene here that drags. Even with the screenplay pushing out your usual war movie cliché's - some unfortunate sap shares pictures of his family, never a good sign in such a film - there's such a gusto behind the project that even the most familiar of characters holds steady. Yes, this is a story about two brothers sharing the experiences of war (a literal 'band of brothers'), but the paths the plot takes stretch the limits of the formula in exciting, compelling directions.
Carrying the film through are two dynamic performances. Jang Dong Gun (sharing more than a passing resemblance to a young Chow Yun Fat) is quite remarkable as Jin-Tae, the young man who grows colder as the war rages and he evolves into an exemplary soldier. And as Jin-Seok, Won Bin provides the right mixture of confused youth and troubled brother. Both leads are quite memorable, helping solidify the story, keeping the sheer weight of the movie from bearing down too hard on the viewer.