1. #1
    Bearcat99's Avatar Senior Member
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    Great WWII film

    I just watched a film called My Way. What a great film..
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  2. #2
    Tully__'s Avatar Global Moderator
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    Cinema, disk or digital download?
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  3. #3
    Bearcat99's Avatar Senior Member
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    I got it at the Redbox.. a DVD rental machine in many supermarkets here.
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  4. #4
    ytareh's Avatar Senior Member
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    Just finished it -great recommendation-some story!
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  5. #5
    Bearcat99's Avatar Senior Member
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    It was so good I had to watch it twice.. and I did not see the end coming. It was even better the second time. One of tyhe best WWII movies I have ever seen.
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  6. #6
    Tully__'s Avatar Global Moderator
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    We have redbox and other similar services... not likely to find it on the list here though. I'll have to do some research, maybe it'll turn up on SBS TV here at some point, it's right up their alley. They're a government operated multi-cultural broadcaster that cover the stuff that our mainstream national government sponsored broadcaster doesn't do.
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  7. #7
    Bearcat99's Avatar Senior Member
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    There is another Korean War movie from the Korean perspective.. I believe this is South Korea.. called The Front Line , another WWII era film called Warriors of the Rainbow and a film about the Soviet army in Afghanistan called 9th Company that I saw in the trailers on My Way that also looked like it was worth a look. Especially Warriors of the Rainbow.
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  8. #8
    I'm actually going to start a teaching job in Korea in March so I've been watching a lot of Korean films...and I just saw My Way this last weekend and honestly I thought it wasn't that great. The battle scenes were pretty decent but they were short and not what the film was about. Mainly the film was just Japanese and Korean people screaming at each other and beating one another. Yes, Korea really got screwed by Japan, but a movie with nothing but screaming and beating gets kind of repetitive and annoying after a while. A good film would use this scenario to rise above it and create art from it and make a statement, but this film didn't really succeed at that, it's just too singleminded. So I wouldn't go out of your way to watch it if it's not easily available. You can stream it on Netflix here in the US though.

    A film by the same director and with the same lead actor you might want to check out is Taegukgi (aka the Brotherhood of War) which is about the Korean War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taegukgi_(film)

    Like a lot of other Korean movies it is sappy to the point of being distracting, but if you can wade past the sappy scenes you get a lot of interesting scenes about what the impact of the Korean War was on civilians, and a lot of really very well done action scenes, though some veer too much towards one-man-army stuff, and the ending segment of the film is pretty ridiculous. BUT if you want to see a Korean War film from the Korean perspective, it's really pretty decent.

    So far the Korean films I've seen have mostly had some kind of flaw that brings them down, but a few of them are really great. I'd really recommend "The Show Must Go On" which is one of the best movies I've seen in a while, period. A lot of Korean films are gangster Goodfellas wannabes, but most aren't very good. This one's about a middle-aged gangster guy who's trying to keep both his family and the mob happy. You wouldn't expect this kind of film to be a comedy, but it is, and it's really funny.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Show_Must_Go_On_(film)

    Another good one is Mother. A mentally disabled guy is accused of murder, and his mom tries to get him out of jail. It's a good murder mystery kind of movie, but also really offbeat, and it's shot well, and the actress who plays the mom puts in a great performance. So all around it's a great movie.


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPcijFQ4PpU

    Some other ones I've seen are The Man from Nowhere and the Yellow Sea, which are more action-y movies. Castaway on the Moon is more of a quirky comedy. They're ok, and shot well, but like other Korean movies there's just something missing. The Good the Bad and the Weird has the craziest action scenes I've seen in a long time, but once you get past the action there's not a lot to the movie. Silmido is about a bunch of criminals trained to infiltrate North Korea...it's ok, just missing that special something.

    Korean cinema is interesting, they have a big and well funded film industry now, and these movies are all shot really well, and they often have pretty good stories, but they just seem to be missing the higher level of artfulness that a true auteur director would bring
    to the table. If I had to make a theory it would be that since their cinema is pretty young it maybe hasn't had time to develop the various crutches and cliches that say Hollywood or Hong Kong movies rely so much on to get by. So Korean movies feel really exciting because they try a lot of stuff that Hollywood wouldn't, but they can also be frustrating because they could use better editing and screenwriting and directing.

    Another thing to keep in mind is Korean are REALLY into family, so Korean films often have a lot of crying and ranting about family members that you wouldn't see in Western movies. I think if you keep this in mind, their sappiness makes more sense (it's almost always something about someone's mom's cooking or finding their long-lost brother) and the plots make more sense too.

    Has anyone seen The Front Line, is it any good? It's on Netflix streaming so I guess I'll watch it soon.



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  9. #9
    Whatever you do, do not waste your time on 'The Red Rose of Normandy. Ooh boy, what a stinker!
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  10. #10
    Bearcat99's Avatar Senior Member
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    I want to see The Front Line.. I still thought My Way was good inspite of the yelling.. It was done in context and a part of a very brutal story of a very brutal time.
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