The movie was ok, but good god, is it really necessary to have 7-8 fist fights that just drag on and on? I feel they really could have cut some of that stuff down. And believe me. I'm all for entertaining fights in movies, but the amount of fights in this movie is just excessive. Some of those fist fights are just outright pointless, so that doesnt help either.
shareIt's an extremely demoralizing environment. I'm 100% sure the same thing happened in WWII and WWI. Oh, and a good number of Koreans love to brawl in the streets like that despite whatever mathematical geniuses Americans think we are.
shareI can think of a few reasons why they showed so many fist fights.
1. It's cheaper to shoot. Sure, fighting with weapons is cool and all, but all those shots being fired costs money, and even if they're not firing, you have to pay all those extras to run around and get "killed", whereas you can throw punches so long as you still have your hands and some strength, and filming two guys duking it out is easier than a battlefield where there's hundreds of men on either side, and said characters just become yet another extra.
Which now that I think about it, is probably why when they do show massive armies duking it out, they then zoom in on main characters fighting, as otherwise we'd lose our interest in them fighting for whatever ideals they have.
2. To show how brutal war can be. Sure, we've seen people fight in the streets, but that's nothing compared to wartime situation where both guys are probably in the fight for their lives and are trying to kill the other guy, or at least incapacitate them long enough to move onto the next guy. I'm actually surprised they didn't do more "dirty" fighting to be honest, such as knees to the groin, kicking/throwing dirt in their eyes, or the simple but effective "bite the other dude."
3. Rule of cool. Sure, we're used to guns mowing down people, but during the Korean War they had a lot of up close and personal fighting, and probably didn't want to end it too quickly by having a guy pull a bayonet out and stab the other dude right away. And again like from example 1, it's hard to concentrate on the character if there's too much interesting stuff happening in the background, like a tank running over people while simultaneously using a flamethrower on the enemy troops.
Sure, they didn't always have to be throwing their fists, but a fistfight usually energizes an otherwise boring talking scene during combat.
Hey man, my dad was at Heartbreak Ridge fighting in the Korean War, he was stabbed with a bayonet, etc. and tells many stories of each sides running out ammo and there being constant hand-hand combat. War is brutal, and if you ask me, from what I heard, the violence is NEVER exaggerated!
shareI noticed a lot of flailing, round-house punches...which tend to be ineffectual compared to a straight on punch with your legs behind you. Of course, if you're standing in a muddy trench, I suppose you get off any kind of punch you can.
shareBrutal is right. My dad was in the artillery in the Korean War and and he told me about the body parts all over the ground when they later investigated exactly what they hit.
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