It's not bad. It's not great. From the few English-language comments about 71, one can piece together that it's a movie vehicle for local teen heartthrobs, kind of like casting the Jonas Brothers in a recreation of The Alamo or the Tet Offensive. There's even a short, bittersweet dance sequence before the final slaughter, as the unprepared volunteer soldiers await the attack by North Korean troops. I'm sure it's meant as a wink to the actors' fans but it plays just fine on a dramatic level, not least because it's brief.
The movie seems to have had a good budget for a Korean actioner, with support from the military. It's shot with very narrow depth of field, a choice that may seem unnatural for a panoramic war movie but heightens the shock and subjectivity of the experience for the teenage heroes, who are in way over their head from the get-go. There are two superb sequences. One is a chase through the woods, as the south Koreans chase a North Korean sniper, who's been sent to draw them out. They follow him into a wheat field where "the commies" are nestled, camouflaged a la Tom Berenger in Sniper. The inevitable firefight doesn't go where you'd expect it to and adds to the tension between the young captain who leads the student soldiers and the cocky thief who's been dumped on their squad.
The second great sequence follows soon after. The top North Korean drives straight into the enemy's compound, white flag waving, and undermines the hero's credibility with a simple offer: surrender and we'll let you live. The surrender scene is a combat trope par excellence, but here it's handled with such slow Leone-style build-up and centered on a terrific performance that it's elevated into something special. It takes a good two minutes for the white-clad North Korean just to get out of his Jeep, wipe the dust off his boot and condescendingly shove a useless prisoner back into the ranks, before he even opens his mouth. As the scene wears on, it becomes clear the hero will have a mutiny on his hands. Good stuff.
The movie is nuanced toward the North, as the southern heroes repeatedly discover the humanity of their enemy. Eastwood did something similar with his pair of Iwo Jima movies and I don't know enough about Korean culture to say whether this signifies changing attitudes toward the North.
The final battle, some 20 minutes worth of wanton slaughter and deeply saturated pyrotechnics, using a wide variety of period hardware, is notable for its use of physical stunts and squibs and for its clear delineation of the space it takes place in, something a lot of action movie makers have lately forgotten. What it lacks utterly is suspense because the movie makers have already shown us that reinforcements are coming and the heroes' fate is already etched in history. To quote Josey Wales, "If things look bad, and it looks like you're not gonna make it, you gotta get mean." These student soldiers get mean, all right.
For all its emphasis on gore and painful ways to die that recall the gut wound death scene in Ryan, the movie also stoops to really icky sentimentality in these final moments -- indeed, throughout the story, as it cuts to shots of hysterically wailing moms as the young volunteers are trucked off, and a cringe-inducing letter-writing voice-over probably inspired by Saving Private Ryan. It's tonally wrong, just as the earlier comic-relief with a fat soldier who eats raw potatoes feels wrong, and it's this sort of weirdness that is keeping even big budget Korean movies from breaking into the American market. Maybe Brett Ratner should re-edit and chop down this one, like he did the Bollywood movie Kites.
71: Into the Fire
2010 [KOREAN]
Action / Drama / War
based on a true story korean war korean war (1950-53) based on true story historical fight to the death
Plot summary
In August 1950, waiting for UN troops to arrive, the South Korean army assembled to protect Nakdong River. Only 71 student-soldiers are left behind to guard the city of Pohang. Now they are on a mission to defend the country from North Korean troops.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
October 30, 2021 at 11:32 PM
Director
Top cast
Movie Reviews
Good not great
Great Casting! Great Acting!
I have been waiting for this movie to be released in the US ever since I saw the trailer on Youtube.com last month and read all the hype. Plus, one of my favorite Korean actors, Cha Seung Won, is one of the four leads. This guy can do it all--comedy and drama, and he does not disappoint as the North Korean commander in this movie. This is the first time I have seen him on a big movie theatre screen and the camera loves him. DVD rentals on my TV are not quite the same--too bad more Korean films don't get US theatrical releases. Also giving excellent performances were Kim Seung Woo and Choi Seung Hyun--two actors who I first saw in last year's Kdrama, "Iris". Rounding out the lead actors is Kwon Sang Woo--another good performance and my first time seeing him in a theatrical film. All the supporting roles were also very well cast. If one likes war movies, this one is not to be missed--especially since it is based on a true incident during the Korean War. Direction, sets, costumes, music--all were well done. This film merits more than one viewing at the movie theatre.
Good but not as good as the others
Compared to the other Korean made war movies it isn't one of the best. Not as good as Brotherhood or The Front Line or Battle at Jangsari. Something feels theatrical especially the characters are contrived compared to the other movies. The ending has a cliched feel. Still the tragic story is interesting and well told in many parts and the battle scenes are exciting. Maybe the last stand story just feels a bit depressing for a movie.