Jeontoo

Don't go by the low ratings given by others here. A good movie about korean freedom fighters.

This is a disgrace to korean movie industry. The story is barely based on true story. Japanese army depicted as a stupid boys playing around in the battlefield. When there is a sniper shooting at them, their first reaction is not to hide and cover, instead they stupidly freeze on the spot and letting the enemy killed them. Ridiculous

Many of the reviewers here seem to take this movie seriously, as though it matters whether it's history or propaganda. I think they are missing the point.

There are movies for which these sorts of questions matter, but this is not one of them! It exists in the same sort of space as a Tarantino movie, like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, or Inglorious Basterds.

For these movies, history is not the point; homage to a certain type of earlier movie is the point. Your villains were bad? Well my villains are worse! Your action was extreme? Well my action is over the top! You used a trope without realizing it? Well I use 50 tropes and am aware of every single one of them!

There are even the usual Tarantino-esque scenes playing with language, in this case an otherwise bizarre scene where the different soldiers all ruminate on their different dialect words for potato.

Given this, does it work as a Tarantino'esque movie? Yes, but... It manages to hit most of the Tarantino notes but I found the wordplay to work less well than in a Tarantino movie, and the storyline+action to be a lot more confusing. Both of these may reflect the fact that I don't speak Korean (so I'm relying on the subtitles) and know pretty much nothing about the country except the basics, so the names and place names meant nothing to me; perhaps to a native Korean these elements fit together a lot better?

Overall I think it's an interesting watch in terms of seeing how other filmmakers are taking and adapting American techniques.

First things first: the Japanese are portrayed as quite the evil people here. You may have an issue with how evil they are (supposed to be). Remember overall this is a movie. In many war movies enemies are shown as evil - to a degree where you may question their humanity.

So if you swallow that (suspend your disbelief), there is a war movie here that is quite violent and quite tension filled from start to finish. Also there are some degrees and some shades of grey in certain characters at least. Not the best Korean war movie, but the effort, the effects, the stunts and the acting are all rock solid to say the least.

I think this is possible because of grand locations. 'The Battle of Bong-o dong' is the story about the land being stolen. It repays with the most glorious and most Korean landscape it can offer. The last scene where Korean armies appear one by one, all united for one purpose overwhelms me because of its scale. The bird-eye shots of each soldier in rough and rugged mountains and gorges made me speechless. A director of cinematography, a director of art, a director of action, and especially one who's in charge of finding and scouting locations deserve commendation. These vivid, energetic, dynamic, and powerful action complements some faults in the story development, which happens rarely for me. Magnificently, tragically, and poignantly beautiful.