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The 1950's, the Korean War: Somewhere in a mountainous region not yet
claimed by the North or the South, Southern 2nd Lt Pyo (Shin Ha-kyun) and
army medic Sang-sang (Seo Jae-kyeong) meet a trio from the North, Chief
Comrade Lee (Jeong Jae-yeong) and his two foot soldiers Jang (Lim
Ha-ryong) and Taek-gi (Ryu Daek-hwan) in a pretty much forgotten village,
and each side tries to take the villagers as hostages. Thing is, the
villagers have not only not heard of a war going on between the North and
the South, they don't even know what guns and handgrenades are - but they
are simple, good-natured and benign folks,and just to appease their
guests, they play along with their little game for a while, put their
hands up for a while ("is one hand enough or does it have to be both
hands ?"), but once they have something more important to do they
leave the strangers to themselves and simply ignore their threats ...
The soldiers go on threatening each other for a whole night, and the
situation is eventually resolved only when one of their handgrenades
that's thought to be a dud blows up the village's food storage.
With their food for a whole year gone, the villagers are heart-broken,
yet they offer their guests at least a meal - which leaves the soldiers
from both the North and the South humbled, and both sides decide to at
least help the villagers with their harvest to restock. By and by,
Northeners and Southeners lose their distrust of one another, sepecially
when they cooperate in killing a boar who's destroying the fields with the
crudest of weapons - and ultimately, they sit by the fire together and eat
the boar (which the villagerws won't touch because they are vegetarians),
and are even joined by an American pilot, Smith (Steve Taschler), who has
been stranded in the village after his plane crashed and he was badly
injured.
Our soldiers eventually all become friends and enjoy the life in the
village, even Smith who doesn't understand any Korean while nobody else
speaks much English, and before long, none of them wants to leave again.
In the meantime though, the Allied forces have pinpointed where Smith must
have crashed and decide they have to save him at any cost. So they send in
a platoon to free him (they of course think he has fallen into the
hands of the Communist North) and decide to bomb the place where he was
held soon afterwards ... and all of a sudden, the village is confronted
with soldiers again, but this time they are ready to kill, and it's
only thanks to our heroes that the village is saved, even if all but one
of the invading soldiers have to be killed in the process. The sole
survivor tells them about the planned bombing of the village, so our
heroes come up with a rather unorthodox plan: They will put up a makeshift
airplane defense post several miles away from the fort to distract the
bomber jets from the village and try to fight them off and make them never
return due to the fierce defense they are putting up. Still, they have to
send Smith back to civilisation with the last remaining soldier since it
is him the Allied forces are really after.
The other soldiers manage to build their line of defense and even
manage to shoot down a few planes and put up a fight to the last - but
ultimately there are just way to many bombers for them to even stand a
chance and our heroes eventually die a hero's death in an actual rain of
bombs ... but at least they save the city.
Ok, so on one hand this is a light-hearted comedy with lots of heart
that tends to get cheesy at times and tends to revert to certain clichés
- but on the other hand, every pacifist soul (and who in his right mind
would not be a pacifist at heart) can't help but love the film for its
anti-war message, especially since it is delivered in such a subtle and
amusing way, plus the film clearly was not made primarily to hammer a
message home but to entertain - and this the film does with aplomb, with
an engaging plot, with many a genuinely funny scene, with beautiful
camerawork and with perfectly staged action (even if the focus of the film
is not on action).
Strongly recommended.
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find Welcome to Dongmakgol at adultvideouniverse.com
