TAE GUK GI: THE BROTHERHOOD OF WAR
(Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo)
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Samuel Goldwyn Films
Grade: A-
Directed by: Kang Je-gyu
Written by: Kang, Je-gyu
Cast: Jang Dong-Kun, Won Bin, Lee Eun-ju,
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 8/12/04
People like me who've had no siblings may be surprised to
hear that "brotherly love" is an oxymoron. Brothers may stick
together when the crunch comes, but as we see from real-life
situations as in the movies, siblings are constantly fighting–for
the attention of their parents, of their classmates, whatever. The
closer we identify with another, the more likely that competition
will drive us to do battle. But few battles in recent cinema are
portrayed as severely, as critically, as viscerally as the friction
between older brother Jin-tae Lee (Jang Dong-gun) and the
younger fellow of whom he is overly protective, Jin-seok Lee
(Won Bin). One of the movie's ironies is that the more Jin-tae
hovers about his kid brother to shield him from warfare's
cruelties, the more he drives the little fellow into outright hostility.
The struggle between Jin-tae and Jin-seok serves as mirror of
and metaphor for the fratricidal struggle between North Korea
and South Korea from 1950 to 1953.
The Korean conflict is called The Forgotten War here in
America, perhaps because most Americans had not even been
born when hostilities broke out, or perhaps because the Korean
War, which the U.S. entered together with nineteen other
countries, failed to result in an American victory–for the first time
since the War of 1812, which like activities in Korea ended in a
stalemate.
South-Korean-born writer-director Kang Je-gyu, considered his
country's leading filmmaker, gained an assured reputation from
his film "Shiri" about a race to stop a chameleon assassin from
blowing up Seoul in the name of reunification. Like that film,
"Tae Guk Gi" (the term is the name of the beautiful South Korean
flag) looks like a John Woo actioner with bloody violence,
sentimental melodrama, noisy gunplay and laser-bright visuals.
"Tae Guk Gi" is framed by scenes in present-day Seoul. A
group of citizens are excavating a site of a former battle,
discovering skeletal remains of the dead, some weapons, and in
one case a pen that served as a sentimental gift from one man to
his brother in 1950. A survivor of the war is found, the pen
jogging his memory of the conflict that began fifty-four year
earlier that was an obvious turning point in his own life as well as
in his nation's. We're sent back to that war in which North Korea,
the communist half divided after World War II from its pro-
Western southern part, invaded the south. Seoul itself would
soon be under attack. While South Korea had a standing army,
it was so surprised by the aggression that it simply drafted men
from the age of 18 to 30 from the streets, forcibly installing Jin-
tae Lee and Jin-seok Lee into uniform. Both are far from excited
about being torn from their mundane city tasks where Jin-tae
operates as a shoe-shine man to allow his kid brother Jin-seok to
go to college. From then on, Jin-tae dedicates himself to getting
his superior officers to send Jin-tae home to care for their
mother. Yet Jin-tae engages in such heroic action that he is
awarded the Medal of Honor, not without picking up his brother's
increasing hostility, particularly when one of his heroic actions
leads to the unnecessary death of a comrade.
"Tae Guk Gi" is filled to the brim with battle scenes, which
compete with the story of the conflicted brothers for our attention.
Both are credible. With its $14 million budget, considered quite
high for a small country like Korea with far from a Hollywood-style
film industry, Kang Je-gyu manages to choreograph hand-to-
hand fighting between the helmeted troops of the South and
cotton-hat-bearing enemies. The latter call their South Korean
brothers "dogs" and "lackeys of American imperialism" while the
southerners repeatedly refer to their northern neighbors as
"commies." The subtitles are probably designed by someone
without a perfect knowledge of English since there are syntactical
and spelling errors-- "comies" for "commies," for example. But
that's minor. The film, released earlier this year in Korea, has
become its country's highest-grossing film, and for good reason.
The principal actors perform like gung-ho soldiers, their hostilities
and affection alike evoked by their splendid chemistry together.
While we're not about to call Korea's leading filmmaker another
Spielberg, the American has cause to envy Kang for booming,
believable battles that can hold their own against those in
"Saving Private Ryan."
Not Rated. 140 minutes. © 2004 by Harvey Karten
at harveycritic@cs.com
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