Ode to My Father

In spite of being set in times of war and how families were separated during that time. What they had to go through right from their childhood till their old age.

But the universal feeling that really teared my heart apart was how we are so fortunate to be close to our parents and their generation yet there's so little we know or rather understand about their lives.

It's a touching film about a son's journey. It was a hard journey. Was it worth it or not... That's left to us. But he had to take that journey because he promised his father.. He had to wait for his father, because his father promised him.

Yea the acting is little amateur and yes it is melodramatic, but I absolutely loved it. It brought both tears and laughter. It was a moving tale with a healthy dose of compassion, empathy, love, honour, friendship and responsibility; it had all. Highly recommended. I used to love korean action thrillers now I'm a fan of korean family drama too.

I am falling in love with Korean war movies. They are so unique written, anyone can easily feel, or can relate with these. I don't know but they worked as spell for me. My point of view about war movie is totally changed. I have watched ''Welcome to Dongmakgol ''and this movie today. In both movies, war perspective is shown so differently like trying to convey peace, importance of family, sacrifices.

Everyone is comparing this movie with ''Forest Gump'' I have watched both of them, still, I can say except for war I don't see any similarities. In ''forest Gump'' it mainly focuses on a man's journey with up and downs but in this movie, the concept is not about a man's life, it's about family for which he is ready to sacrifice anything. It's about a son promised to his father and trying to protect it till end.

I love watching Korean movies. There is always something new to be discovered and their narratives can be out of this world in terms of inventiveness, crazy story lines, hard-hitting action, high melodrama and kinetic energy. If you have seen enough of Korean cinema, you will probably know your love for the current Korean flick is only there during the duration. The moment it ends, all memories of the film start to dissipate into oblivion. These are usually the dime in a dozen type of film. Ode to My Father belongs in the category of the 'two'. This one got the emotional beats spot on with nary any overt manipulativeness (which is a wonder) and it is easily one of the best films I have seen this year.

Synopsis - Amid the chaos of refugees fleeing the Korean War in December 1950, a young boy, Duk- soo, sees his fate change in the blink of an eye when he loses track of his younger sister and he leaves his father behind to find her. Settling in Busan, Duk-soo devotes himself to his remaining family, working all manner of odd jobs to support them in place of his father. His dedication leads him first to the deadly coal mines of Germany, where he meets his first love, Youngja, and then to war-torn Vietnam in this generational epic about one man's personal sacrifices.

Review - This film is ambitious in wanting to depict 60 years of tumultuous history through the life of one man. IMHO the movie manages to do just that. I like the strong sense of place and time. The staging of the epic scenes is so outstanding, I was easily pulled into the story. Absolutely love that refugee fleeing scene of Hungnam in 1951 which later becomes part of North Korea. It was heartbreaking to see how a pair of sister and brother get separated in the chaos. I also love the brilliant use of flashbacks to move the plot. How the flashbacks are triggered is seamlessly and creatively done.

Jeong-min Hwang (of New World fame) who plays Duk-soo, gives his character a cheeriness balanced with a sense of dogged purpose. His positive energy is affable and infectious, and his stubborn bickering with his wife and good friend, the source of many jokes. Dal-su Oh, Korea's busiest supporting actor plays Duk-soo's best friend, Dal-gu through the years. Their relationship is painted with much comedic strokes and full-hearted poignancy without those usual skull-numbing stylistics.

The immediate film you will no doubt compare this Korean film with is Forrest Gump which isn't a bad thing. But the similarity is only with its use of historical events. With Forrest Gump, a man is sanctified to God-like status and he unknowingly changes history, but with this one it doesn't walk that path. This is a story of a man whose his father's parting words at Hungnam haunts him to his core and he would take the entire duration of his life to live up to his father's words. The movie maintains an even tone throughout and I feel it is the historical events that change him. This is a film possessing a remarkable balance of sentimentality and harshness, light and darkness.

Today Father's Day 2015, I brought my wife and kids to watch "Ode to My Father," a big Korean hit movie dubbed into Tagalog for local audiences.

"Ode to My Father" has a reputation that precedes it. It is a big-budget film that cost a whopping ₩14 billion. It debuted in Korean movie houses in mid-December 2014, and remained at Number 1 for five consecutive weeks. By its 8th week of release, it became the second highest-grossing film of all time in the history of South Korean cinema with 14.2 M admissions and a $105M gross. This was second only to "The Admiral: Roaring Currents" released July 2014, which had over 17M admissions and a $132M gross.

I know my wife will like a film like this. However, my kids, especially the boys, did not really want to go see what seems to be a heavy drama film. Good that they relented to have their old man choose the film to watch on his special day. During the film, I was happy to observe that they were quite attentive during the film, and did not fall asleep as they were saying they would. In fact, they ended up really liking the film, being dubbed in Filipino notwithstanding.

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"Ode to My Father" is the story of one Yeon Deok-soo, whom we first meet as an elderly man staunchly keeping his old imported goods store open in the Gukje Market of Busan, despite all odds. He is currently living with his wife of fifty years, Young-ja. Through flashbacks, we are told about the harrowing experiences this man went through in his life.

As a boy, he lost his father and younger sister during the evacuation of their hometown Hungnam during the Korean War in 1951. Settling down in Busan at an aunt's house, Deok-soo took it upon himself to be the man of the house, helping his mother earn money and raise his two younger siblings. Extreme financial necessities brought him abroad as a miner in Germany in the 1960s and as a non-military personnel in Vietnam in the 1970s. During the 1980s, Deok-soo tried his luck in locating his lost father and sister through TV shows who helped reunite family members estranged during the Korean War.

The movie had a "Forrest Gump" feel as we follow the life of this man through his extraordinary experiences over the decades. You can definitely see where the big budget went in the amazing production design depicting the different periods in different countries where the hero spent his life. Those scenes depicting the Hungnam Evacuation of 1951 were especially spectacular in scope and rich in details. Those scenes in the dangerous mine shafts of Germany and the war-torn villages of Vietnam were likewise made us feel the difficulty and tension of such dire situations. The drama of those footages of families reconnecting on TV felt very real and compelling.

I do not watch too many Korean films, so I am not familiar with any of the main actors. Hwang Jeong-min played Yoon Deok-soo from youth up to elderly age. He does so with much conviction and heart, so that we completely absorbed into his life journey.

Oh Dal-su plays his very close friend Dal-gu. Oh's character is given the role of the comic relief of the film. His antics can be cringe- worthy as his hairstyles were over the years, true. But without him, this film may have been too downbeat and depressing. There were a few brief scenes of a sexual nature that may be awkward when you watch with kids.

Kim Yunjin plays Deok-soo's wife Youngja from her young days as a nurse working overseas in Germany to her old age. She plays supportive very well, but she was also given the opportunities to show that she can also speak her mind.

Jang Young-nam plays Deok-soo's long-suffering Mother. Ra Mi-ran plays his enterprising Aunt Kkotbun. These two ladies play their characters with dignity and poise.

With "Tidal Wave" (2009) and "Ode" under his belt, director Yoon Je- kyoon became the first direct with two films passing the 10 million ticket sales mark in South Korea. In "Ode", he plays his rich winning hand of a story with dramatic flair. The way the story was being told, tears can really flow out with not much effort. The older you are, the more you can identify with the family issues being told in the film and really get emotionally connected.

Even if we are not Koreans, and we are not very familiar with these events in their history, we can still connect with Deok-soo's travails. We even hear the characters speaking in Filipino, yet that fact does not negatively affect our appreciation of the film as much as I feared. But yes, to be completely honest, the quality of Tagalog dubbing can be distracting at times. I would have rather watched this film with its original Korean dialogue track intact, with English (or Tagalog) subtitles.

Overall, I enjoyed the multi-decade span of this story and how meticulously the story had been told and excellently presented on screen. How I wish I had my parents with me when we watched this film. Having gone through the war years themselves, I feel they would appreciate the family story, identify with the adversities and get emotionally affected even more than I was. 8/10.