MovieChat Forums > Taegukgi hwinallimyeo (2004) Discussion > About as realistic as Call of Duty, Ramb...

About as realistic as Call of Duty, Rambo-action ruined the drama!

posted 10 years ago by Lin301
3 replies | jump to latest

How anyone could take this movie seriously is beyond me; it wasn't a terrible movie or anything, production value was top-notch but the actual war scenes really killed it for me, especially in contrast with the overly dramatic non-battle scenes. Tae storms machine guns head on like some 80s action hero, of course only getting grazed in the arm, and basically finished all the missions on his own; it actually reminded me of Call of Duty with a bunch of NPCs just shooting at each other until the player (and thus the main character) makes a move and saves the day.

We are then led to believe that it is all to save his brother from this dramatic nightmare of awesome heroic warfare and are supposed to take it seriously? I mean come on, no wonder his brother didn't want to go home, he was way behind on his killstreak. But all jokes aside, the amount of supposedly dramatic but secretly gloryfying violence was just ridiculous, same goes for the overly sentimental and cheesy 'tearjerker' scenes and flashbacks, it al seemed more like a parody to me. It's a shame though because there really was some interesting stuff here.

[–] Dantès 10 years ago

You're maybe half-right.

Theo over-the-top action stuff was a bit too much.

But the "overly sentimental and tearjerker" aspect is a criticism I've seen from other critics who just don't get the culture. Which I don't mean as an insult. Korean culture is deeply family oriented and many of its dramas and shows are similarly "cheesy" to non-Korean audiences, but this really touched a nerve with its intended audience. I saw it at a packed theatre in Seoul, and people were bawling.

[–] HenryCW 10 years ago

I have re-watched a number of Korean war films recently, and based on those (including this and My Way) my impression of battle scenes and action in Korean films has not been a favorable one. The unrealistic and over-the-top Rambo-style action scenes were there but to me not the main problem. The main problem was that the director appeared to think the longer the action and the louder the explosions, the more exciting the battle scenes would be. Instead, I found the battle scenes excessively long and repetitive to the point of being boring. Every few seconds you see soldiers firing their guns, throwing grenades, using their bayonets etc., but no scene lasted long enough for you to feel anything, or even to figure out who was killing whom. Many other war films had been able to capture the elements of fear, tension, and horror of battles much more effectively.

As for the "overly sentimental and tearjerker" aspect, I don't think it could be explained just by differences in culture. Even if Korean culture is "deeply family oriented", the same could be said of many families in the US. Talking about stereotyping, I have also heard that people from Eastern societies tend to be show more restraint and less open in the expression of their feelings. I think there is some truth in that, and so it is all the stranger that films from that region have not often shown the same degree of restraint. In this film, it appeared that the louder you cried and the longer you grabbed a dead body, the greater was supposed to be your grief. Subtlety appears to be something that many filmmakers from that region (including Korean and Chinese) have yet to learn.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]