Starting Point: Gay War Days

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I won't quickly forget the scene in Starting Point during which a Japanesse officer (Heo Jang-kang) and his Korean subordinate (Shin Seong-il) relentlessly flog another soldier's ass because the latter refuses to apologize. (For what, I'm not entirely sure.) Later, that same sergeant taunts the sore-assed G.I., daring him to kill with a chokehold then laughingly mocking his feeble efforts. The film gets even more sordid when the commanding officer rapes that same soldier later on in a hideaway cave. If you're looking for "queerness" and "degenerate" being given a false equivalency, Kim Soo-yong's war drama with an extensive fictionalized flashback has it in spades.

The gay subplot, if you can call it that, is bizarre. Who's gay? The attacker? The victim? The witness? The young brother with girlfriend problems who's reading his older sibling's autofiction-in-progress? The alcoholic older brother responsible for writing this twisted tale? I actually wondered whether I was misreading the signals until a series of shots foregrounding uniformed butts was followed by an unbuttoned shirt and some rebuttoned pants. What's the opposite of homosexual subtext? Homosexual domtext? Can a movie be homosexual verstext, too? Based on Starting Point, I'd say, "Very much so in 1969."

The Battle of Jangsari: Teens at War

Call me a sentimental fool but The Battle of Jangsari is one of those war movies that makes me gasp then cry. Co-directors Kim Tae-yong and Kwak Kyung-taek — and their team of screenwriters who've divided the English- and Korean-speaking dialogue — trot out familiar types: the wild outcast (Kim Seong-cheol), the sensitive leader (Kim Min-kyu), the big-hearted ox (Jang Ji-gun), and the quiet one (Lee Ho-jung) with a secret you'll guess early on. But then they ratchet up our sympathy by making these characters teens without training. This is a war pic about earnest young soldiers who are largely expendable, a troop of rosy-cheeked recruits who are treated like cannon fodder, a secondary concern, collateral. Actually, the behind-the-scenes talent didn't make that happen. The Battle of Jangsari is based on a true story; in the Korean War, over 700 real high school students really were recruited, uniformed, armed then sent on this Pyrrhic mission before they'd even finished boot camp.

Their easily avoidable predicament makes the adults a despicable lot. Imagine sacrificing a high school as a diversionary tactic! The Korean general (Myeong Gye-nam) behind the operation is loathsome; the smooth-talking American general (George Eads) doesn't come across much better. He just a better bullshitter. There are two adults who truly rise to the occasion. One is a self-sacrificing soldier (Kim In-kwon) who knows they've no business puttings these kids' lives on the line so he keeps putting himself in harm's way. The other is a stylish reporter (Megan Fox) for the New York Herald-Tribune. She's the one who advocates against their deployment and pesters about their rescue; she's the one who recognizes their collective tragedy even before it's begun. She also looks fabulous, as if she'd miraculously walked out of a noir film from the early '50s. I think both sides of the war could agree on that.

Battle of the 38th Parallel: Fiancée Under Fire

It's a testament to the wide range of prolific director Im Kwon-taek's vast cinematic output that you can find his movies at the Korean Film Archive's magnificent archival YouTube channel as well as at the Wu Tang Collection, an online pulp movie aggregator with an incredibly different agenda. A war pic heavy on artillery and light on character development, Battle of the 38th Parallel falls comfortably in the latter's more lurid lineup. Ghastly dubbing and severe editing (that's cut a half-hour from the film) make the pulp appeal here even greater; any dialogue — or monologue, for that matter — comes across as so much filler before the next air raid, the tank invasion, the next tossed grenade, the next sniper shot, the next launched missile. Dead bodies proliferate.

Oh sure there's a plot involving a young woman (Kim Chang-suk) in search of her enlisted boyfriend, a commanding officer for the South ("When you see your fiancee, tell him I died like a soldier") but having crossed enemy lines and made her way to safety, she's not about to rest on her laurels. Once she's received that less-than-romantic letter from her paramour, she's back on the road to shellshocked Seoul to deliver a late serviceman's diary to his anguished family. Strangely, the long journey that made up most of the film is completed in reverse in the blink of an eye. That's what happens sometimes to squeeze in your final message before the end: "We must never allow such a war to occur again!"

Farewell to the Duman River: Im Kwon-Taek's Strong Start

It's kind of amazing that celebrated Korean director Im Kwon-taek's first film, Farewell to the Duman River, led to such an illustrious career. This melodramatic war pic isn't your conventional crowd-pleaser or arthouse crossover with atmospheric music in short supply, an extended chase scene fairly devoid of tension, and periodic jumpcuts that jar the viewer with no clear intent. And yet, Im's maiden voyage into moviemaking is definitely more than watchable, and not just for its feel-good story of revolutionary college students and their endless shootoffs with the Japanese.

What makes Farewell to the Duman River so undeniably delightful is the trio of actresses driving much of the action. Moon Jeong-suk plays a femme fatale supplying the rebels with needed info while Kim Hye-jung captivates as a man-hungry mountain-girl triggered into heat by the wounded hero. Neither woman is a match however for Eom Aeng-ran. In the role of the lead's pregnant girlfriend, she goes from demurely seeing her man off to war to robbing the family safe to turning the tables on an amoral uncle (Heo Jang-kang) to chasing the enemy through the snow with a machinegun and not one ounce of mercy. The gun-fight on skis got me delirious yet nothing beats a good ol' fashioned machine gun mama.

Illang: The Wolf Brigade: Man Gets Worse Over Time

In a not-so-distant future in which we still take cabs but fire guns that look like blowdryers, a war has broken out on the Korean peninsula. This time around, however, the conflict is not between North and South (which want to reunite despite international pressures to the contrary). This time around, the fight is between The Sect (rebel forces) and The Special Unit (an elite police force). At least that's what it seems like at first. As the movie progresses, the battle appears to actually be between The Special Unit and Public Security, a rival law enforcement agency. None of the groups comes across as a force for good, although The Sect theoretically represents the proletariat. Do they uphold the sanctity of life? Not a chance. And really can you blame them?

Humans have grown worse over time. Our basest traits have evolved. Im Joong-kyung (Gang Dong-won) is an affectless soldier who was part of a mass killing of young girls. Lee Yoon-hee (Han Hyo-ju) is a faux bookseller who will betray anyone for her ailing little brother. Can these two fall in love? Even if they're working at cross purposes? More to the point, can they feel anything? Furthermore, what do either of them have to do with the young suicide bomber (Shin Eun-soo) in Little Red Riding Hood drag? Let it go. Let it all go. The best part of Kim Jee-woon's scifi snoozer are the shootouts and fistfights during which I found myself as unconcerned with who'd come out on top as I was tickled by the fight choreography.

Piagol: In War, Everything Is Justified

YouTube's Korean Classic Film channel is the Korean film fan's beloved online version of Turner Classic Movies, a treasure trove of restored classics, cult curiosities, and other cinematic wonders from the celluloid vault. Piagol, one of the channel's older black-and-white movies, is a gritty 1955 war pic about a dwindling squadron of North Korean soldiers struggling for relevance and survival at the tail end of the Korean War. As portraits of the military go, it's anything but flattering yet the critiques leveled by writer-director Lee Kang-cheon have a despairingly universal quality: Ranking officers rape female officers with little consequence; villages are pillaged for food then violence is justified for dubious political reasons; discipline is extreme and inconsistent and often pointless; the enemy often comes from within. (P.S. Don't expect the Soviet Union to rescue your ass!)

And it's not just one bad red apple in khaki here. The icy-hot Ae-ran (No Kyeong-hie) backstabs her rival female enlistee Soju (Kim Yeong-hui) for no good reason while both the lead officer (Lee Ye-chun) and that snake of a G.I. Man-su (Heo Jang-kang) pull out knives to literally stab others, with even lower motives on their mind. With WWI poet laureate Wilfred Owen likely staring down at him from the heavens, all the duplicity and detonating bombs in the world cannot and will not kill the Byronesque tendencies of Piagol's impossibly romantic Cheol-su (Kim Jin-kyu), the dashing serviceman who gazes wistfully at the clouds as if posing for a paperback cover of Wuthering Heights. So who surrenders and who dies? Well, the one to ultimately survive the nasty infighting amidst periodic enemy gunfire may surprise you. It sure did me.

Three O'Clock on a Rainy Afternoon: A Love Pentagon

Three O'Clock on a Rainy Afternoon is one of those tragic romances that's so fraught it seems likely that someone might kill themselves while listening to opera. The only question is who? The Korean-American war correspondent (Lee Min) whose bride abandons him before the honeymoon? The violin player who unknowingly crushes on his best friend? The young woman (Kim Ji-mee) who's promised herself to two possible husbands? The homegrown veteran (Choi Mu-ryong) with severe depression and a cane? The undergraduate music student who seems to fall for everyone while no one really cares? Oh yes, there's a lot of frustration in this love pentagon. But as to leaping into oblivion, as one character puts it, "I was too weak-willed to go through with it."

There's also a lot of Western references in director Park Jong-ho's heartbreaker circa 1959: a jazz band at the army barracks, another one at The Pagoda nightclub, a ballet company doing pas de deux, a music class with a few bobbysoxers, some wedding vows spoken in English, and a professed proficiency in the cha-cha. They've even adopted one truly unsettling American ethic in this post-war Korea. Per one drunken, former G.I.: "I miss the battlefields on a night like this. When I felt frustrated, I would point my gun at the enemy. After a round of firing, my heart would feel much lighter." Gun therapy! (And yes, this is the type of guy who would take a slug a woman... and does.) Soon enough, you're no longer wondering if one of these character is going to slit wrists and taking bets on which one might pull out a pistol and shoot another in a fit of passion. Well, someone does die. But not in that way either.

Hurrah! for Freedom: A Fragment of Liberation

Gertrude Stein once said that she enjoyed the beginnings of movies but lost interest once she could figure out the plots. I understand her viewpoint. Somewhat related, I'm a big fan of movies with missing footage. I enjoy being left in mid-air by a truncated flick, films like The Widow and Yangsan Province, historic works which end not where the director planned but where the footage comes to an end. Sometimes, there's something less pat and more real about stories that are inconclusive, accidentally or not. It's as if we'd suddenly turned our heads away from the action then discovered that all of the players had left, thereby leaving us to come up with our own conclusions and narratives. Such is the case with Choi In-kyu's Hurrah! for Freedom which not only ends in the middle of the action but periodically jumps around as if some internal footage had also disappeared.

What we know in Hurrah! for Freedom is that the Korean resistance is committed to rioting as a way to combat Japanese occupation and people from all walks of life are getting involved: mothers, nurses, lovers... At times, Hurrah! for Freedom can recall the Italian Neo-realists with its intense-faced men and low-gloss interiors; other times, the style feels almost French New Wave like the highly stylized cuts that happen between a guard and a hospital patient. Vignettes of a woman breaking up a fight between two boys only to get a mud-ball thrown at her back and a man caressing another man's face in a homoerotic manner pull you in as well. This film may also be known as Viva Freedom, but I couldn't resist Hurrah!

The Sea Knows: Not-So-Basic Training

Basic training probably involves some form of violence in many military indoctrinations but the punishments inflicted on Aro-un (Kim Woon-ha) as a Korean cadet in a Japanese troupe during World War II are especially brutal — not just physically but psychologically. Imagine licking the shit off the bottom of the just-shined shoe of a fellow soldier as your comrades laugh. (To be honest, I'm wondering how you could polish a shoe and not notice there was poop on the bottom but no matter...) Not everyone finds the shit-eating amusing, mind you. The tallest recruit, a fellow Korean named Inoue (Lee Sang-sa), has Aro-un's back through all the horrible hazing but initially, he's the only one. Then love arrives!

Military brat Hideko (Gong Midori) is prejudiced against Koreans when she first meets Aro-un but soon enough she's warmed up to him and is breaking all the rules on his behalf. Did you know that scrubbing the back of a respected guest in the bath is a Japanese tradition? Well, neither did Hideko's outraged mom (Ju Jeung-ryu). Guess you learn something new everyday. Additionally, Hideko feeds Aro-un endless bowls of white rice, pours him a very shallow cup of ritual tea, and dances around in her kimono — all for Aro-un, Aro-un, Aro-un. Hell, Hideko would rather die in Aro-un's arms than run to a bomb shelter. That's how strongly she feels.

Will these two lovebirds brought together by pity survive the war? It's hard to tell. The American victory over the Japanese may be something to celebrate but even then a Korean soldier had a hard time making it out of the Land of the Rising Sun alive. The last scene in Kim Ki-young's war pic dramatically illustrates how tough that final escape from the jaws of death could be. Thrilling!

Red Scarf: War Hurts Women

After watching her early sloppy-drunk scene in Shin Sang-ok's war pic The Red Scarf, you're reminded how much actress Choi Eun-hie was restricted by the material provided to her throughout her career. To her credit, in many performances, she periodically pushes against the "lady" stereotype in which she's been straitjacketed but she's never quite as exciting as she was when she played that amoral hooker in the brilliant A Flower in Hell. The Red Scarf isn't a bad showcase for her talent, mind you, it's just that she'd be that much more compelling if she could rail against the military-industrial complex instead of serve it.

How does she serve? Basically, she's condemned to being a soldier's wife, not once but twice — first to a one-screw-loose pilot (Nam Kung-won) who proposes shortly after meeting her; then to his much calmer replacement (Choi Mu-ryong) who unlike his comrades has not been burdened with a nickname like "Sissy" or "Nerd."

How she gets from one man to the next is all due to the machinations of a brusque, alcoholic major (Shin Yeong-gyun) who doubles as the local matchmaker with a kind assist from the bar's good-time madam and bartender (Han Eun-jin). Yet as the adrift young woman becomes domesticated a second time, she also becomes less fascinating; and as insanely preposterous as the rescue of her second husband from behind enemy lines might be, you secretly wish the leading man had been killed so his wife could move on to husband number three or at least descend into a world of boozing and whoring and drugging and thieving. Or jumping in an airplane and becoming the first female fighter pilot in South Korean history.

From 5 p.m. to 5 a.m.: Night Battles

Are you living your best life? Apparently, the soldiers in the DPKR army are. They're constantly laughing, singing, and living each days with a sense of purpose and devotion. Skeptical? Well, that's understandable. For what are they laughing at? A theatrical spotlight that's been sent to their camp and to which they react with complete joyous bewilderment. What are they singing about? An eagle that will bring them news from home. What are they devoted to? War. And their leader. Who they love. And can you blame them on this last count? The American president Eisenhower has been bombing their country and working to rally the world's forces against them so great is his distaste for communism. They've got an allegiance to the communists though because that's who freed them from Japanese occupation. So what's the answer? At this point, I couldn't say. But in From 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., a North Korean officer with a heart ailment is willing to give up his (happy) life if that's what it takes to resist the capitalist forces. So is his sharpshooter daughter who's arrived just in time for a birthday celebration. So is the doctor who served as a commanding officer earlier in her illustrious career.

North Korea makes a disproportionate number of war pics when you compare their cinematic output to other countries and within this genre, director Kim Yu-san's From 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. distinguishes itself because of some unexpectedly artful touches in the editing. A tragic battle that takes place on a train is chopped up by shots of the locomotive wheels to dramatic effect; a deathbed moment gets an otherworldly look via its use of deeply saturated red and blue lighting. There's also some sly social commentary here too as the American military heads are shown giving press conferences full of bravado even as their enemies up North are about to "shower a fire of revenge." You may recognize one of the men on the American side in particular: James Joseph Dresnok, the United States Private First Class who defected to North Korea and found a new life as a movie star of sorts — albeit one who always played villains. You can learn more about him in the documentary Crossing the Line.

Wolmi Island: Unexpected Feminism

Hollywood's misogyny is the stuff of legend. All you need to do is look at your Twitter feed for fresh reports of horrors that continue unabated. Producer Harvey Weinstein, director James Toback, studio head Roy Price, actor Tom Sizemore all now have atrocities associated with their names. Yet while the particulars of each man's offenses may make you recoil, such crimes seem hardly surprising in an industry that has so consistently portrayed women primarily as eye candy. Smart women in leading roles is still a news story in the USA circa 2017. Which is what makes my recent viewings of North Korean movies so mind-boggling. Time and time again from the 1970s (Centre Forward) to just a few years ago (The Other Side of the Mountain), female characters in North Korean flicks are shown as strong, independent, no-nonsense, and driven. Even the 1982 war pic Wolmi Island, which reflects the sexist attitudes of some recruits and officers towards the young, female communication officer who has just been sent to assist the troops, eventually reveals that any condescension is unmerited. This woman is — if anything — one of the movie's primary heroes.

When it comes to patriotism in North Korean movies, the women are never outdone by the men; director Cho Gyong-sun's Wolmi Island is no exception. Yes, she's girlish, maybe even immature, but she's committed, steely, persistent, and reveals a rebellious spirit devoted to the cause that puts all the men here to shame. You eventually learn that the commander (Choe Chang-su) is not heartless; the cook (Choe Tae-hyon), not foolish; and the master-gunner (played by the director himself!), not afraid to die. But only our heroine (Yun Su-gyong) earns our respect and never loses it by being soldierly and sisterly as the situation requires and without any need of a medal. When the gorgeous red smoke billows across the screen at the end, she was the one I missed the most.

Order No. 027: Bones Break But She Won't

Maybe I've been setting the bar too thoughtlessly low with these North Korean movies. I mean, did I really enjoy that martial arts flick Pyongyang Nalpharam last week? Or was I seduced by the novelty? the strangeness of it all? And even if I did really like it, would I be able to enjoy it as much again now after seeing the infinitely better Order No. 027? The latter film, made about 30 years prior, has a stronger storyline, less corny acting, and most importantly finer and longer fights. It's still odd with its outdated shooting techniques, indicative performances, and lapses into propaganda but how easily I seem to have forgotten that, with action movies, Foley sound effects should not just be used to indicate the damaging contact of kicks and punches but also the more severe crunch and crackle of breaking bones. The directorial choice — made by co-directors Jung Ki Mo and Kim Eung Suk — to loop footage so that a knee to the face happens mercilessly more than once makes for some painfully effective combat sequences. This is a war pic after all.

Order No. 027 also got me thinking about the word "demure" which according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary means "reserved, modest." In an American film, a demure ingenue would be virginal, naive, easily shocked, uninformed, and weak... oh basically helpless. But in a North Korean flick, a woman can be demure and still be a well-trained spy eager to go into enemy territory alone to complete a suicide mission, a fearless warrior capable of out-fighting three soldiers in tip top shape, and a true patriot who will walk miles after being shot to deliver an important message. Sure, she's modest and unassuming but she's neither simple-minded nor a scaredy-cat. Korean cinema, be it North or South, favors women with nerves of steel and physical prowess over the dim-witted damsel in distress. Hollywood would do well to take a page from these screenplays.

Northern Limit Line: No One to the Rescue

Ostensibly created as a tribute to the sailors of Chamsuri 357, a South Korean patrol boat — with quite a bit of artillery — that got pummeled by its enemies from up North in 2002, Northern Limit Line instead feels more like a recounting of what went wrong amid a self-sabotaging crew that ended up with 6 sailors dead and many more than that injured. In particular, the newbie medic Park Dong-hyeok (Lee Hyun-woo) comes across as especially incompetent as he overlooks the severely-impaired hand of the helmsman (Jin Ku), proves himself poorly trained in CPR, and at the start of an actual battle gets distracted by an ant on deck then ends up spilling all of his bandages (which he carelessly wipes against his filthy helmet upon retrieving them later). I realize that he's a rookie but someone needs to tell this guy to man up or send him back for basic training. He doesn't gain my respect because, when he's hospitalized after the battle, he salutes the casket of a comrade on his television set. Someone should've courtmartialed this no-class soldier weeks ago!

Unexpectedly, given the unflattering slant of the movie, there are "credits" interviews with actual survivors of the Second Battle of Yeonpyeong, the real-life conflict that inspired the film, and there's poignancy in hearing the actual recruits talk of survivor's guilt and the bravery of their shipmates. But alas and what a shame that this war pic about such a tragic event should portray the crew as a bunch of disorganized, whimpering guys who really just want to watch soccer on TV, eat crab soup, and take shore leave. Meeting one sailor's mother (Kim Hee-jung) — who is both deaf and can hear an EKG monitor when it stops — doesn't humanize them so much as make them seem like momma's boys. As tributes go, N.L.L. is sorely lacking in grit, despite special effects that show the dismemberment of arms, legs, and fingers. Tellingly, director Kim Hak-sun's screenplay is based not on a memoir but on a novel by Choi Soon-jo. Maybe that's why it feels so fake.