Another Korean war drama about the war between North and South. Two friends were captured by the North and separated. Both thought the second kaput. But a few years later they meet - lieutenant and counterintelligence. Both survived, went back to their own and were successful. Counterintelligence performs an important mission - looking for a mole among his troops. This is where he meets a friend.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the battalion of Allagitors, where everything happens, is engaged in an equally important task - the battle for the hut of the forester. In the negotiations on the truce, everything is buried in the unfortunate mountain - who has it at the time of signing the treaty, a lot of land will go to him, because it is easier to draw with a pencil on the map. Then the meat grinder begins. It turns out that this mountain has passed from hand to hand already thirty times and in general all consists of corpses buried on it.
The film is ambiguous. It is purely anti-war and shows the meaninglessness of mass fratricide. And the fighting scenes are bloody to the point of impossibility and scale. But, God, how ridiculous it all looks! This drama was directed by Chang Hong, who was 35 years old at the time. A man who clearly did not hold a machine gun and did not wear uniforms. The series of the same “truthfulness”, only less talentedly filmed, came out in our clusters in zero. Fighters and armored trains. In fact, this is a collection of terrible front stories that should tear the soul of the civilian population to shreds. And tear. It is peaceful that you can tell him any story, and he will believe. Yes, each of these stories could happen in real life, but the trouble is that in the film they all happened in one place and with the same people. It doesn't happen. A lot of tearfulness and soulfulness. The northerners are all beast-like, the Chinese are a horde of Orcs storming Helm’s Fall, millions of them with red rags on long poles. Assault height looks like a thick human wave, fervently blasting machine guns on an almost vertical slope. And knocking out the enemy. To retake positions tomorrow. And storm again. Hunting for a sniper looks like a picnic, where you need to get up to pee in a prominent place to catch a bullet. The sniper duel consists of feverishly driving a rifle on the opposite side of the mountain in search of the enemy and, of course, he is right there. The sniper is all-powerful and sees everyone at once and shoots in all directions at once. Man, let the director at least once look at the optical sight, in which you can not see anything outside of a very small sector, limited by the “pipe” of the sight. That is why the sniper always walk in a pair - the shooter and the gunner. The gunner-observer cuts to the sides, looks for the target, says where it is, and then the sniper points his tool there and shoots. Otherwise, what the hell will he find in his pipe? The Southern Army is a rabble of idiots with no hint of discipline. Commanders are bloodthirsty ghouls who do not care about the victims, take the height and everything is here, or we have already drawn a line with pencil. Does that ring a bell? All right – such anti-Soviet nonsense, presented as “an honest true truth, because we were all lied to” filmed in the 90s. One to one. The fine is pure. Commanders, we were betrayed, filled with meat, etc. And the final is just like the 9th company. Anti-war stamping.
In general, I am very disappointed, until the 38th Parallel, this film was like before Pyongyang cancer. I hope that Taxi Driver and Unmounted Film by the same director turned out better, because it is not about war and there it will not make sense for him to express his civic position instead of making a good movie.
And how to make an anti-war movie, Chang Hoon would better learn from Ted Kotcheff, who directed the brilliant film Rambo. First Blood or Mike Cimino with his Deer Hunter. In these films, there is little war in one, and in Rambo it does not exist at all, but they cause extreme aversion to it.
The theme of the complex relationship between North and South Korea is one way or another present in many Korean films, even far from military themes.
So it’s no surprise that there are so many films about this war.
But “Front Line” is not so much about the conflict between the two Koreas, not so much about battles and hostilities, but about people and human nature.
I would recommend it even to those for whom the topic of the Korean military conflict is not at all interesting. The Front Line is a film about war in general and what it does to human lives. A simple, honest, sincere film that takes you alive, to which you mentally return again and again.
The absence of the main ideal hero is typical for Korean cinema and complete nonsense for Western cinema. The front line is no exception. There is no superhero, no knight without fear or reproach. All characters are contradictory, they are ordinary people, with their own weaknesses and shortcomings. How many viewers can judge their actions that we, on this side of the screen, find immoral or inhuman? Who are we to judge them, since we were not there in the trenches (and God willing, we will never be)?
Longing for home, longing for parents, cheerful fooling in rare moments of rest, a strange game to bury “secrets” for enemies – yesterday’s ordinary guys became soldiers, some of them became angry, someone became hardened, someone lost their minds, someone lives only on painkillers – but they are still the most ordinary people who dream that this hell will end soon. They do not even have hatred for their enemies, because on the other side of the front there are ordinary guys, crippled by a senseless war.
Those viewers who expect to see spectacular battle scenes in this film will be disappointed. There are scenes of battles, but they are only a background for the characters of people.
The greatest indignation is caused by politicians, high ranks, for whom people are nothing more than pieces on a chessboard, consumables. Forests are cut, chips fly. Unknown soldiers are not interested in anyone.
Very impressed with the acting work, all, but I want to highlight two.
Lee Jae-hoon plays a person with a broken psyche, suffering physically and mentally, but purely externally he gives the impression of a person without nerves and without emotions. Not the most important, but memorable character. A cold look, a face like a mask, a minimum of words, but how much pain is behind it all! And how it is played, just top aerobatics.
Ko Su, whom I knew better as a model and as one of the most beautiful faces of Korea, created the most vivid image in this film. His hero came to the war weak, intelligent young man, who was frightened by every shot. And he ended the war with a man of iron nerves, completely devoid of sentimentality, driven only by one thing - to survive and save his people. Some of his actions are shocking, some make you shudder, but even after the film, you think about this character for a long time - is he right or not? Is there a place for emotion in war? Or is everything so unequivocal - any touching emotion can lead to unpredictable, dangerous consequences?
Very touched by the sniper girl. What happened to her, why she became so, we can only guess. But it is this understatement, this subtle drawing of the image, this general detachment of a young, beautiful creature that catches the most.
“We must not fight the enemy, we must fight the war itself” – this is the main philosophical idea of the film.
It seems to me that “Front Line” is one of the best films about war, it should enter the classics of world cinema.
10 out of 10
A great movie about the immorality of war. While politicians negotiate and argue over scraps of land, at the front people kill each other.
Hemingway once said, “Those who fight in war are the most wonderful people, and the closer you get to the front line, the more wonderful people you find there; but those who start, incite and wage war are pigs who think only of economic competition and that you can profit from it.” I believe that all who profit from war and who contribute to it should be shot on the first day of hostilities by the trusted representatives of the honest citizens of their country whom they send to fight.
Director Hong Zhang managed to shoot one of the best, in my opinion, pacifist films, and although some details are implausible (for example, sending parcels to each other at a strategic point, singing a song before the last fight), but the film does not lose, but on the contrary, emphasizes the tragedy of the fratricidal war. What I like about modern South Korean war movies is that they don’t try to show that we Southerners were so good and our opponent, the North Koreans, were so bad. The directors try to be completely impartial towards both sides of the conflict. So in this film, I caught myself thinking that I empathize with the main characters of the film, but I also like their opponents, and at that moment I realized what an indelible pain in the hearts of ordinary Koreans this war left.
The ending of the film is particularly powerful: when the two surviving soldiers laugh at the cease-fire order, it is the laughter of the exhausted Korean people at the stupidity and ambitions of their politicians.
And there was the 38th Parallel, and I believed in South Korean war movies.
And there were "Unfired" who almost killed my faith.
And there was a "front line" that restored it.
The front line is no lower, if not slightly higher, than the 38 Parallel, which has become a kind of Korean classic of military cinema. Both films are strikingly different from the same “Unfired”, starting “for health”, and ending really “for rest” with their stupid Hollywood final fight and other cliches.
In Front Line, as in Parallel, the director managed to stay on the thin edge of objectivity and not show sympathy or dislike for any of the parties to the conflict. No one is portrayed as evil stupid ghouls or vice versa, pathetic cool heroes. There are people in different uniforms on different sides of the front. Once, until recently, they were one people, and now they are forced to kill each other.
Briefly on the plot. In 1953, the Korean War came to an end. Politicians and generals of the north and south agree on where the border between the DPRK and the Republic of Korea will be held after the truce. Before the truce, each side is convulsively trying to grab for the last piece of territory fatter — and for this it is necessary to force the enemy troops to move. As a result, the bloodiest battles of the First World War, with huge losses on both sides and an almost fixed front line, only some key positions change hands dozens of times, turning the disputed territories into giant mass graves.
Soldiers no longer remember what and why they are fighting, just howling - who is on orders, and who is just out of habit.
And here in one of these hot spots on the front line (hill Ero, more than a hundred times changed hands) sent a counterintelligence officer of the army of the South, to figure out on the spot in some oddities. Why are bullets fired from South Korean weapons found in the corpses of South Korean officers, or in what incomprehensible way does the South Postal Service deliver letters sent from the North, i.e. from the other side of the front line, to addressees in the South? How is that possible?
Thus, the war film is seasoned with a detective story. There is intrigue, and emotions, and battle scenes enough. And in the end, the viewer at full height is a drama.
That's what I want to say, guys, that's how you make war drama movies, like this! Watch and learn. Learn, learn, and learn again, as the classic bequeathed to us.
What is only one scene in the fog, where both sides, standing in the face of fate, sing the same song in chorus, one on all - cuts through, believe me.
In general, “38 Parallel” and “Front Line” can be conditionally combined into a kind of dilogy – one tells about the beginning of the war, and the other about its end. Both films are worth each other and complement each other well.
The film is highly recommended for viewing - you will not regret it!
Evaluation - no options:
To make qualitative comparisons between projects of the same genre, and at the same time production of different countries, the idea is quite subjective. And yet, it is worth noting that this story about the last days of the Korean War in terms of filming quality, emotion and final impressions of viewing, not far removed from the famous and critically noted Western military dramas. In other words, all things being equal, this film could be more recognizable.
You want to start analyzing the content of the film, paying attention to the color palette. Gray, almost devoid of bright tones, prevail even in scenes in the forest, displacing the usual green. This gives what is happening a certain oppressive atmosphere and once again emphasizes the fact that in any war, especially fratricidal, there are no lyrics and romance, there are not enough excuses for what has been done and even less worthy. Thus, the very process of viewing forms a certain mood, correctly noting the tragedy of the war drama.
Many viewers note for themselves such a characteristic as the density of battle scenes, and in this sense, the emphasis in the picture is still on the frontline life of soldiers, especially in the first half. This is a rare case when history is based not so much on the scenes of the storming of enemy fortifications on the hill, but on the comprehension of what happened after. Available short descriptions of the film are not quite correctly accentuated - before us to a lesser extent detective story, which is actually given only secondary importance, and more - drama.
There are almost no complaints about the quality of the production of the film, although there is a certain unevenness - at least one important scene is conveyed too superficially - this is with an abundance of dialogue, part of which could be sacrificed. The first serious storm of the height of Erok causes a bright surge of emotions, and the scene as a whole qualitatively resembles one of the moments of the film “Saving Private Ryan”. The picture, of course, is not without roughness, which in rare cases hurtfully cut the eyes, and yet the final result leaves a worthy impression.
It is worth highlighting the work done both with the main characters and with a dozen secondary ones. The story surprises with a departure from the classic stereotype of the division into “bad” and “good”. Even sworn enemies, each fight with which is fraught with cruel death, at some point appear to be the same victims of circumstances. The same applies to the soldiers themselves from the company of “alligators”, whose actions often differ from the usual idea that war dictates and imposes its own order of things. This artistic thought permeates the entire two-hour timekeeping with a red thread.
7.5 out of 10
One weekend, he hosted a Korean War movie night. In a war where, because of the geopolitical games of the powers, one people split into two parts and live to this day. And especially at a time when the symptoms of exactly the same games are manifested in the country closest to us.
After that war, from the ruins of a senseless war, the South for 30 years turned into an Asian tiger, and the North continues to bend its line. This is a good example for everyone.
The film, which is based on real battles of the war and certainly recommended for viewing - "Front Line".
The film is hard, objective. A lot of blood, tears and betrayal. But, most importantly, the author does not take one side, showing everything as it is without glossy pathos. A film about the difference between the “understanding” of the war of a staff counterintelligence officer and soldiers in the front line.
The headquarters requires the soldiers to hold the high ground, for after the armistice and demarcation, the strategic point must remain on one side. And so soldiers fight and die at this height, have already taken and retreated thirty times.
And this is where the counterintelligence officer finds out what the headquarters perceives as black and white. And at this height, the soldiers on different sides of the barricades, who have been fighting for a long time face to face, everything is already mixed, there is no longer a line between black and white. They are all so tired of war that everyone just does it, by inertia. They shoot and kill by inertia. Nothing makes sense.
At the end, the counterintelligence officer meets with the officer of the North asks:
You said three years ago that the war would end in a week because I don’t know what I’m fighting for. Did you know that?
- “I certainly knew what I was fighting for. It was so long ago that I forgot.
Announcing the truce, which both sides at the height perceived as a victory, forgot to specify the small addition that the document comes into force at 22:00!
So there are 12 hours to climb. Next up is the grit...