Lee Young Ae, Lee Byung Hun, Song Kang Ho, Kim Tae Woo, Shin Ha Kyun
Movie rating: 9/10 Neck score: A
I knew going into this one, that it was going to be filled with tension and sadness. How could a movie about the boarder between two countries, divided, and constantly on the brink of war not be? It certainly had all of that. It was also full of all the emotions, like every Korean movie I end up watching. I really liked the build of this one, as it starts with the event that is being investigated, with gun shots and dead bodies, and then we slowly get flashes into the different sides of the story, until we get the full story, what really happened. By this point we are fully invested, so it is all the more tragic and heartbreaking, and we're crying, or at least ready to at any moment. It had a good way of catching the beauty of the little moments, so that the gravity of the big moments were all the more harsh. This is something that's hard to find in most typical movies. I love it when the little moments are important.
I loved how cleanly it portrayed both sides. It didn't demonize or glorify one side over the other. It didn't paint one bad the other good, but that the whole thing was a mess. The higher ups on both sides were just as bad, demonstrating the stereotypes and prejudices, while the common soldier, the individual, each had a story and their own opinions.
