Danny's Weblog

Movie Reviews

My movie reviews are basically intended for people who have *already* seen the movie, so people who have not seen the movie referred to should beware of spoilers!

Additionally, the reviews are not meant to be comprehensive, with a full synopsis etc. Such reviews are easy to find on the web. My own reviews just address specific issues, hopefully with novel information.

2008 Sep 11 [ Thu ]

Movie review: Brotherhood (Taegukgi), 2004

This is a movie about the Korean war, made in Korea. It is basically an antiwar movie, showing how North and South Koreans were driven to kill each other. The American involvement is minimized. Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taegukgi_(film)]

I just want to make one point. In one scene, South Korean soldiers approach a village, and see that all the peasants have been slaughtered. They start to deal with the bodies, and then there's an explosion: apparently the bodies were booby-trapped.

I don't think I'm boasting too much when I say that when that scene started this very thought ran through my mind: *why* would anyone bother to kill the peasants? I was thinking the sergeants should order the men to search for boobytraps, and indeed they should not have entered the village in a clustered group.

Perhaps actual soldiers of the period would have been warier, or perhaps I'm just paranoid. Actually, I think I'm just an old guy: I've seen a lot of movies. So I ask myself questions like that. I also ask myself a question which the makers of the movie perhaps did not intend: since the result of the encounter was to transform the surviving South Korean troops into pitiless killing machines, who benefited from the atrocity? So who had an incentive to carry it out?

But a *lot* of questions like that could be asked. For instance, I have seen a lot of reviews of Saving Private Ryan which saw it as an account of the "last good war". But it clearly shows Axis captives being shot out of hand by the invading US troops, and seems to suggest that it was necessary. How could people avoid seeing that? What has been done to western society that almost everybody who watched the movie could be so brutalized? Even US Army commanders have complained that the casual use of torture in the TV series "24" has made it impossible to teach soldiers to handle prisoners without brutality.

This is why I believe we are living in Orwell's 1984. We have *always* been at war with Eurasia.

[Single-story view] [/Reviews/Movies] [permanent link]
Responses: 0 [View/add responses]

I hope this information was useful. There may be a great deal more information on this site that is relevant to what you need. Take a look at the "site map" display at left; you can click on a topic to see many recent items on that topic.

This page is available for searching.

Debug: hittotal: 10 startban: 0 dancookie: endbandate: banned: 0 tempdate: tert: jse: jsno jsh: 10



About How this site is organized and what it's for Weblog start page The start page contains the most recent 15 articles. Home page The main home page of my website, not my weblog. Currently not used. ------------------ Articles by month Click here to get all the articles for a particular month. This month's articles (if any) Current month Today's articles (if any) Articles dated 2008/11/20 only ------------------ Subtopics ------------------ Site map Root (1158) Asia (295) Cambodia (171) Augtrip (12) Khmer-language (57) Phrases01 (1) Miscellaneous (102) Japan (1) Language-misc (30) Miscellaneous (15) Thailand (68) Thai-language (22) Thingstobring (5) Clothes (1) Computer (1) Miscellaneous (3) Vietnam (5) 200603trip (2) Miscellaneous (2) language (1) Chrome (86) Computers (322) Hardware (44) PC (6) Internet (120) Joomla (4) Miscellaneous (26) Opsystems (96) Apple (3) Linux (20) Windows (73) Programming (33) Excel (4) Hacking (2) PHP (2) Perl (9) Shell (5) Video (2) Health (14) Acclimatize (1) Miscellaneous (9) SARS (3) Links (15) Miscellaneous (113) Opinions (224) Drugs (3) Letters (8) Bangkokpost (2) IHT (2) Miscellaneous (1) Nation (3) Politics (149) Attack911 (42) Iraq (32) Miscellaneous (75) Society (57) Reviews (63) Books (3) Hardware (13) Movies (44) Software (3) Spamproblem (1) Wi-fi (9) nolist (13) good (1) pkd (5) rcvd (3) Search my weblog Advanced Search Search for text on this site You may have to use search if I move files around! Listing of all articles by date Flavours There's more than one way to view this weblog; these links display the current page in other formats. Index (Story headings) RSS (XML format for aggregators) External links These are a few of my favourite sites. T E S T Slashdot yesterday Copyright © 2003-2007 Alternate Worlds Publishing, Boston MA USA Wenhua dageming de zhongyao jiaoxun shi bixu fandui geren mixin If I have been able to see further, it is because I am surrounded by midgets. Never ascribe to stupidity that which can adequately be explained by malice. "Your argument's repugnant and intriguing." "That's kinda my thing."	Danny's Weblog Movie Reviews My movie reviews are basically intended for people who have already seen the movie, so people who have not seen the movie referred to should beware of spoilers! Additionally, the reviews are not meant to be comprehensive, with a full synopsis etc. Such reviews are easy to find on the web. My own reviews just address specific issues, hopefully with novel information. 2008 Sep 11 [ Thu ] Movie review: Brotherhood (Taegukgi), 2004 This is a movie about the Korean war, made in Korea. It is basically an antiwar movie, showing how North and South Koreans were driven to kill each other. The American involvement is minimized. Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taegukgi_(film)] I just want to make one point. In one scene, South Korean soldiers approach a village, and see that all the peasants have been slaughtered. They start to deal with the bodies, and then there's an explosion: apparently the bodies were booby-trapped. I don't think I'm boasting too much when I say that when that scene started this very thought ran through my mind: why would anyone bother to kill the peasants? I was thinking the sergeants should order the men to search for boobytraps, and indeed they should not have entered the village in a clustered group. Perhaps actual soldiers of the period would have been warier, or perhaps I'm just paranoid. Actually, I think I'm just an old guy: I've seen a lot of movies. So I ask myself questions like that. I also ask myself a question which the makers of the movie perhaps did not intend: since the result of the encounter was to transform the surviving South Korean troops into pitiless killing machines, who benefited from the atrocity? So who had an incentive to carry it out? But a lot of questions like that could be asked. For instance, I have seen a lot of reviews of Saving Private Ryan which saw it as an account of the "last good war". But it clearly shows Axis captives being shot out of hand by the invading US troops, and seems to suggest that it was necessary. How could people avoid seeing that? What has been done to western society that almost everybody who watched the movie could be so brutalized? Even US Army commanders have complained that the casual use of torture in the TV series "24" has made it impossible to teach soldiers to handle prisoners without brutality. This is why I believe we are living in Orwell's 1984. We have always been at war with Eurasia. [Single-story view] [/Reviews/Movies] [permanent link] Responses: 0 [View/add responses] I hope this information was useful. There may be a great deal more information on this site that is relevant to what you need. Take a look at the "site map" display at left; you can click on a topic to see many recent items on that topic. This page is available for searching. Debug: hittotal: 10 startban: 0 dancookie: endbandate: banned: 0 tempdate: tert: jse: jsno jsh: 10