Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I thought this movie was very good. It has its flaws (which I will get into later), but overall, it's a very well done piece of cinema. This film, along with many others is proof that Korean movies, and by extension Asian movies, have grown up and are ready to seriously compete with Hollywood for global influence, audience and market share. I am impressed with Tae Guk Gi's attention to detail, special effects, cinematography and other high production standards. Now, enough people here give you a quick synopsis of the story and adequate description of the plot, so what I am going to do is respond to some of the comments that other reviewers have made. I think my input might be helpful be cause I am a Korean raised in North America and can understand both worlds and explain things that were either misinterpreted or not clearly understood by non-Korean reviewers. Some non-Korean reviewers have commented that it seemed like there was some over acting or acting "over the top" going on. Well, believe it or not, Koreans act like that in real life. They are emotional by nature, yell at each other a lot, slap around their younger peers, etc. Jin Sok and Jin Tae's mother collapsing after the train departs looks like something a Korean mother would do in that situation. What some non-Koreans would consider as "overacting" I would, as someone from a Korean background, consider realistic and normal (give the extreme situations that the characters go through). Anyone who thinks overacting is purposely going on in this movie needs to join the peace corp or something and get exposed to other cultures in different parts of the world. One reviewer thought that Koreans fought unusually well given their supposed reputation at the time as poor soldiers. Well yes, South Korean soldiers did run away and retreat from North Koreans early in the war. South Koreans were badly underequipped and poorly trained because the U.S. thought their priorities in 1949 were in rebuilding Japan, not stop communism in the Korean peninsula. It's interesting to note that U.S. soldiers early in the war also broke and fled the field because they were fat and lazy occupation troops formally stationed in Japan. Jin Tae and Jin Sok were in the 1st ROK division commanded by the brilliant 29 year old general Paik Sun Yup. The 1st ROK division never broke or fled the field without orders. It reached Pyongyang before any U.S. units despite the fact that they didn't have as many motor vehicles and was largely a foot mobile unit. Thus, the scenes were ROK troops are fighting without U.S. support in the streets of Pyongyang are largely true. Speaking of General Paik, if any of you want to read a Korean War history book that's from a fair Korean perspective, read Paik's book entitled "From Pusan to Panmunjom." It's available on Amazon. I understand that this movie has been compared quite a bit with Saving Private Ryan. I have to say that in the areas of intensity, dramatic power and overall sincerity, I believe Tae Guk Gi supasses Saving Private Ryan. However, in terms of battlefield realism and special effects, I believe SPR surpasses TGG. To me, the battlefield effects are a notch below SPR, but a notch above John Woo combat movies like Windtalkers. I mean, molotov cocktails exploding like motar rounds when they should really flash and flame modestly, machine guns blaze without spent cartridges being expended, the tanks look like an inaccurate cross between a Sherman and a Pershing, cannon rounds and grenades alike all seem to have the same size explosions, so on and so forth (btw, Jin Tae does not walk through a hail of gun fire from a "mini-gun". That Russian machine gun is not a gatling-type "mini-gun" it is infact a conventional, single barrel Pulemet Maksima obrazets, vintage World War 1. The cylindrical sleeve is to help keep that single barrel from overheating). Having said that, the battle scenes are nonetheless highly entertaining and better then 90% of all other war movies. However, due to those modest technical slips, I give the movie 4 and not 5 stars.