2/5 Good stuff, but overwrought
  by Undeadmenace86
Tae Guk Gi started off well enough, introducing us to a story of two brothers and their family and the effects the Korean War had on them. The action is good too; it brings up situations that you don't usually see in war movies. What causes the movie to unravel is the melodrama. It's piled on like so much syrup, and the film buckles under the weight as it plays out. It's like the battle around them ignores their personal dealings so the characters can put on a show! If anyone saw them hugging out there on the field, someone would just shoot them both and keep running! It started ok, but then twisted into an action movie instead of a war movie. By the end, it was less a respectable war film and more like Pearl Harbor! The sappy drama and music had me laughing by the end!

Don't get me wrong, this story could have made a great movie, and it gets credit for being one of the few about the Korean War. But if a war movie unintentionally makes you laugh, it's not that good.

5/5 A great war film. Definitely worth seeing.
  by Jaewoo Kim (Santa Monica, CA)
War films are very personal and always subjective. Naturally, Americans will have more interest in watching films about Americans fighting in a war. That doesn't mean, however, that foreign war films such as this don't offer perspective that Americans can't identify with. This is a great war movie by any standards. Although Koreans will undoubtedly find this movie most compelling, it also offers much to other nationalities and cultures.

In additional to vicious and realistic battle sequences, this movie, perhaps unintentionally, provides deep insights into the core Korean values of family and education. The movie is about two brothers. The older brother willingly sacrifices himself (both economic opportunities and his own life) for the sake of his younger brother. The older brother is most proud of his younger brother's accomplishments in school, where he is an excellent student. Towards the end of the movie, the last lines are about going to school and finishing education even when Korea has been decimated and people have nothing left to eat or roofs over their head.

One oversight of this movie is it leaves no mention of the heroic American sacrifices in the Korean war. Over 36,000 Americans gave their lives in that horrible and brutal war. 137,000 South Korean soldiers also gave their lives. I felt the American involvement and sacrifices deserved at least a few lines of recognition and respect. But this movie was created when George W Bush, who was the most hated man in the world, was the US President.

This movie will leave you in tears. The music is very touching and so right for this film. The production budget for this film rivaled many Hollywood films and was highest in Korean cinematic history. This movie easily falls into one of all time best Korean films.

5/5 Fantasic war movie - one of the best!
  by Andrew F (Seattle, WA)
I had heard nothing about this movie before watching it - in fact, only renting because it looked like it may have had some good action scenes. This movie blew me away! Everything, from the characters to the storyline to the action was absolutely outstanding. In particular, I was amazed at how well the action scenes were put together and how realistic they were. The war scenes were truly masterpieces!

Beyond the battles though, this movie did an outstanding job of capturing the horror and internal strife the Korean war caused for Koreans. My only complaint was that the young brother could be exceedingly annoying, and in a total war like Korea was, his misguided optomism could have had deadly consequences.

Other than that, this movie is definitely one of the top 5 war movies around!

5/5 The Best War Film Of The Last Fifteen Years?
  by darklordzden (Australia)
Jin-Tae and Jin-Seok are brothers living a life of simple labour in Seoul at the dawn of the nineteen fifties. Jin-Tae, the older brother, has foregone the possibility of study in order to provide for his mute mother and his orphaned bride to be, Young-Shin, and her younger brothers and sisters. He works as a shoe-shine boy, is learning the craft of the cordwainer and aspires to open his own shoe store. Jin-Seok, his younger brother, is regarded by Jin-Tae and their mother as the rising star of the family and many of Jin-Tae's sacrifices have been made in order to ensure that Jin-Seok, who suffers from a heart defect, has a decent shot at an education and an academic career.

However, the bleak spectre of civil war between the capitalist South and the communist North is waiting at the periphery of their simple world and when it intrudes upon their lives, it will have devastating consequences for both of them...

'Brotherhood' is a film which is easily superior to any war film to have come out of the west, with possibly the exception of Terence Malick's, The Thin Red Line. It has a breadth and scope which rivals that of the great David Lean's epic Lawrence of Arabia (Collector's Edition, 2 discs) - DVD and in many ways emulates, in it's simply told story of a family caught up in the tumult of world-shaping events, that director's adaptation of Pasternak's, Doctor Zhivago.

But be under no illusions, this is no genteel tale told in soft chromatic hues: the violence, brutality and conflict that Jin-Tae and Jin-Seok witness and participate in, once they have been unwittingly drafted into the south Korean army, is visceral, graphic and surpasses even that seen in Spielberg's vastly inferior Saving Private Ryan (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition).

Many of us in the west have been soft-pedalled the horrors and repercussions of the war in Korea due to the proliferation of programs like M*A*S*H - Martinis and Medicine Complete Collection and the films of Sam Fuller. In many ways, it has almost become the forgotten war. Whether you're a fan of great cinema, a student of history or simply a thinking, feeling human being, you owe it to yourself to see this astonishing, brutal and humane piece of film-making.


4/5 Love is a battlefield
  by Zack Davisson (Seattle, WA, USA)
One of the things I love about watching foreign-language war films is the perspective they offer. With only American films, we see a single perspective, with generally clear-cut lines about what side we are rooting for. Some films, like Heaven & Earth and Letters from Iwo Jima, have tried to offer a more balanced point of view, but they are ultimately still American films made for an American audience, and not quite the same thing as watching Battle of Okinawa and getting an entirely Japanese perspective.

Case in point: Growing up on M*A*S*H I had the idea that the Korean War was fought entirely by Americans, with actual Koreans only showing up from time to time as comedy relief or a plot device. It was a conflict that I had never given much thought to. It seemed like an easy war.

"Brotherhood" ("Taegukgi: Hwinalrimyeo" which translates loosely as "Flag of Korea" or "Yin and Yang", which makes up the Flag of Korea: "The Brotherhood of War") immediately smashes those misperceptions, leaving now doubt that the Korean war was fought for the Koreans, by the Koreans, against the Koreans. The American army is only on the fringes, lingering as a faint hope of rescue and military power for the embattled troops.

The story is a basic set up, with two brothers being involuntarily drafted into the South Korean army. They are good-natured country folk, with family and true loves. The younger brother, Jin-seok Lee (Bin Won Guns & Talks) is the family's hope, college bound with a good academic record. Jin-seok is forcibly taken by the army, and the older brother, Jin-tae Lee (Dong-Kun Jang The Coast Guard) joins as well to protect his younger brother, and hopefully secure his release. Jin-tae is told by one of his commanding officers that if he can win the Medal of Honor for bravery, his younger brother would be allowed to go home. To win the medal, Jin-tae transforms into a veritable God of War, volunteering for every dangerous mission and facing any danger. He soon becomes seduced by his own reputation, enjoying being a national hero and showing pleasure in killing the enemy. Jin-seok is tortured by his older brother's transformation, and does not want his freedom bought at the cost of so many lives and his brother's soul.

There are other subplots: Jin-tae has a fiancé he left behind. Jin-seok has a friend fighting for the other side. Betrayal and political suspicion lurk in the background, and the story of Jin-tae takes some unsuspected turns. But ultimately, as the title suggests, this is a tale of two brothers.

As a war flick, "Brotherhood" treads the line between modern, realistic films that show the ravages and horror of combat, and classic flicks that showcase feats of heroism and thick emotion. The battles are bloody and personal, and the hardships of soldiers without enough to eat or ammunition to fire takes a toll on everyone. Without hope of winning or even of staying alive, the brother's unit struggles with their role in the war.

However, the realism is just a setting for a melodramatic story. The older brother, Jin-tae, has an almost magical power to run through hails of enemy bullets without suffering so much as a scratch while people die around him. The two brothers also have time during even the thickest and bloodiest fighting to scream at each other and deliver long speeches. I don't mind a bit of melodrama, which is typical of Asian cinema, but sometimes belief is stretched to far, and you just have to shout "Come on! There is no way they could still be alive!"