71: Into the Fire (21/10/10)

Great film. A korean blockbuster. 4/5 star. Based on a true story, this show is quite good in terms of showing the emotions of the students from the day they were enlisted till the day the fight till their death for their country, South Korea. Really touching expressions and scenes that will definitely make girls cry. Scenes like waving goodbye to till families while embarking on the lorry to go into war without any experience. This film focuses on the 71 students that were forced into the war between North and South Korea due to the lack of enforces in the South Korea army. Even though students, but, they understood the meaning of how important South Korea need to win this war. They weren't sissy but forced themselves to be courageous to pick up a rifle, throw a grenade, use a knife to fight. Crying in the middle of the night and getting love sick of their interest over instruments, show the difficulty of being called into the war with entirely no experience. Training was done on the spot once enlisted.

So can anyone answer, after watching, why did the South Korean students continued to bomb the North Korean approaching commander when he actually returned a captured South Korean soldier? I guess the North Korean commander returned him was because he needed their help to use that area as a base for advance operation and movement therefore he smartly disguise his decision to return the South Korean student as he was just being a student and thought that the South Korean students can easily be fooled by simple gesture of allying. The main actor did well at the end but the initial, he portrays a coward which is really irritating because he looks like a loser with his actions. Many tensions between the officer of the students and one of the seemingly outstanding and experienced student with fighting. Tensions however were used in the right way in the end that brought good results for the South Koreans. However help came too late and the entire 71 students were wiped out including the officer. Really touching scenes there. Comments from others saying that some actions were too exaggerated. Well, yeah it is, like charging forward with a knife right up to the tank driver to kill him so that the North Korean tank will cease shooting. But its just a movie so.

A tip for watching this film is to not seat right behind but somewhere in the middle because the english sub titles are in white which totally camouflage most of the time with the images in the movie. Having to understand korean would be a great advantage.