GO-JI-JEON

War is Hell. That is even more true when the combatants are engaged in a civil war, such as fought on the Korean peninsula following WWII as proxies for the communists and western democracies slugged it out on a frozen, often desolate landscape while negotiators of a truce spent years haggling over the diplomatic table. I was hesitant to try South Korean director Hun Jang's movie Go-ji-jeon: The Front Line (2011), but I am happy I watched it nonetheless. Some of the scenes were as good as in Saving Private Ryan and other superior American efforts. Counter intelligence officer Kang Eun-Pyo (played ably by Ha-kyun Shin) arrives in the Aerok Hills of eastern Korea to ferret out a suspected spy where he finds his old friend Kim Soo-Hyeok (Soo Go) who he thought had been killed in an earlier engagement. Kim soon reveals to Kang the tragic existence his battalion has endured, repeatedly taking and losing the same bloody hill, so often in fact that the sides leave hidden presents for each other every time they retreat, and the mounting toll of death, disability, and despair. Junior officers do what they can to protect their men, all the way to mutiny, as they face an equally determined foe on the field (and a particularly accurate sniper as well), but as the truce nears both sides calls upon these much-abused troops to plunge into a final all-out engagement. The viewer gets an often overlooked view at what life may have been like for Korean troops in a largely forgotten war, reminding us that American soldiers were not the only ones to die, and that there was a multiplicity of actions and reactions experienced by our allies. Overall the acting is very good, the story is interesting and well told, the photography wonderful. I am sure that the actors are familiar to their home audience. Definitely not a feel-good film, but I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone who enjoys war movies and enjoys action that also condemns the brutality and senselessness (and stupidity) often accompanying bravery, sacrifice, and patriotic soldiering. Several scenes will stay with me for a long time: a young injured war orphan reacts to the taunt of an angry soldier, and a poignant moment played out between the warring sides as they prepare to engage.

THIRST

Last night, after the boys were sent to bed, I watched a Korean vampire movie titled Thirst. It was interesting and a little bit sad, about a humane priest who volunteers for a special experiment to develop a vaccine against some strange virus and is turned instead into a vampire (and whose survival makes people think he is a saint capable of healing), but who resists hurting any humans in his new manifestation. He begins having carnal thoughts and then falls in love with a woman he later makes into a vampire, but she complicates his life by refusing to follow his direction. At times the acting is a bit wooden, although I though the woman who plays the lady who raised the girl (and whose idiot son has married her) was good. Ok-bin Kim is wicked and cute in her role. The special effects are second rate.

KOREAN FILMS

Went on a bit of a tangent in the foreign-film department over the last few days, selecting two Korean movies that were interesting and disturbing, but well done and intriguing. They couldn't have been more unalike.

First, The Uninvited, is a psychological ghost story concerning a interior designer (soon to be married) who suddenly finds himself dealing with guilt and two small ghosts (their death he witnesses; he fails to even try to help, though he could not have known). Their presence shakes him severely and forces him into an arrangement with a deeply troubled woman, who has special powers, in which his repressed past is startingly revealed. The whole story is really about how the revelation of terrible truths can haunt and destroy---in fact I thought it was interesting that the director employed nazi symbols in at least one scene. It is a deeply troubling film (definitely not something you would want someone under about 16 to see), and the main victims in the tale seem to be children and mothers. The colors used are often depressing; lots of rain. There really isn't much humor in the film, although there are several quite interesting observations, as when his fiance points out that if a crowd has come out of church, only to have the worshipers caught in a sudden downpour, they will run off, but not go back inside the chapel.

The second film, Untold Scandal, is an erotic, beautiful story about a manipulative, jealous matriarch in eighteenth-century Korea, who manuevers her philandering male cousin (a real cad, who revels in seductions, especially of women who are more difficult to corrupt) into several trysts that she thinks will benefit her and punish her husband (for taking a much younger concubine). As in all tragedies, the fates are more powerful than human action, and unexpected prices must be paid. The costumes and scenery are absolutely gorgeous, as are several of the actresses (sue me for having a weakness!). The movie provides some interesting insights into Korean culture of this period. Yes, there is nudity and sex, but I would recommend it, especially for lovers of sad romantic stories.