Hwang Jung Min, So Ji Sub, Song Joong Ki, Lee Jung Hyun, Kim Su An
Movie rating: 7/10 Neck score: A+
This was definitely set up as a wartime/survival/underdog movie. We have a bunch of Koreans forced into a labor camp on a coal island off of Nagasaki. Tricked and then forced into slave labor. So naturally, since this is a WWII movie, the Japanese are going to be super demonized. Just letting you know. They're basically the worst in this. Not just kicking the puppies, they're outright killing the puppies. The other worst is that it's a fight to survive in this camp, so Koreans are turning on Koreans, especially the ones who kiss up to the Japanese to get favorable treatment.
So we're following a musician (Hwang Jung Min) and his band, and his daughter (Kim Su Ah), who get forced into going, along with a boatload of "drafted soldiers" and a bunch of women who were brought to "help". They're just trying to survive, but even with their letter of recommendation, they are forced into the camp. So Ji Sub is one of the drafted. He's a gangster with authority issues. He starts a fight on the boat over, and has an awesome run in with Lee Jung Hyun who is basically boss and can hold her own, which is great because she can help protect the daughter, who's like 10, but is still separated out with all the women. They all get forced into the coal mine labor camp, forced slavery or indenture, since they force them into debt along with everything else they do to them. Once in the camp, it's basically just survival.
It's funny because this one was a lot more action packed, but because of that it felt less harsh than the brutality that was in A Taxi Driver. There was plenty of violence and fighting, but it was the kind we were used to? Not all of it, just in general. There was still plenty of shuddery violent scenes, and anxious ones, such as the bathhouse fight, which was awesome as it was scary because fighting almost naked in a bathhouse, so in and out of the bathtubs. But that was the way to do a bathhouse fight (cough cough The K2 cough cough). As they were coal mining all the time, there was plenty of almost naked men, which could go both ways depending on who the man was.
I always felt the most anxious for the daughter the whole time, because she was just a kid and had to face some pretty nasty stuff, but that's the reality of that time, so they weren't pulling too many punches. It's a good thing that she was super smart along with everyone else, or there is no knowing what could have happened. Shudder. It was a little bit like Life is Beautiful, the Italian Holocaust movie, if you've seen that, but much more action packed and a whole lot less tear jerking, which is not to say that it isn't tear jerking, because it's a Korean movie, but nothing makes me cry like Life is Beautiful.
I kind of like how ambiguous Song Joong Ki's character is. I'll just leave it at that. He's special forces, but what is his mission? Duh duh duhhhhhhh. That's one of the things I liked about everyone. They're all on their own side, which might be the same side, if they could figure it out, but the number one objective for everyone is survival, and then they have to figure out how and with whom, etc. I liked it a lot. I probably liked A Taxi Driver more, because it was more sentimental, but I did like both. I'd recommend it just for that cool three screen deal. I'm not a fan of 3D, so this was a much cooler alternative for me. I felt very surrounded, which was awesome in those mine scenes.
