Reporter for a North Korean news service joins the partisans when the Americans and UN forces invade South Korea. The course of the film chronicles his journey through the war.
I picked this DVD up pretty much blind in New York's Chinatown. The only thing I could read on the package was that it came subtitled in English. The picture on the box was of our hero trying to kill himself with a rifle. Other than that I knew nothing about the film when I started it.
Neither a good film nor a bad film this was more or less a standard, though over long, war film from a different point of view, namely the North Korean. Not a propaganda piece, the film simply shows war from what many would consider the other side of the line. Large scale to be sure the film is much too polished and perfect in a completely artificial way, no ones clothes are really ragged, there is no dirt and some of the battle scenes have lines that are so neat and pretty even the most polished Hollywood film would blush. To me much of it comes off as silly TV movie.
Allowing the film most of its flaws, the one that makes me not want to recommend the film is that its much too long. The film seems to keep going and going much like the Energized Bunny in TV commercials. I didn't really see the point after awhile, to be sure it covers most of the events of the war and gets the point of its despair across, but at the same time I don't think it needed to be over two and a half hours long.
War film fans or those interested in Korean cinema may want to give it a try, others may want to give it a pass.
4 out of 10 (should be a 5 but its too long)
