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Silmido
On 31 January 1968, 31 North Korean commandos infiltrated South Korea in a failed mission to assassinate President Park Chung-hee. In revenge, the South Korean military assembled a team of 31 criminals on the island of Silmido to kill Kim Il-sung for a suicide mission to redeem their honor, but was cancelled, leaving them frustrated. It is loosely based on a military uprising in the 1970s.
Release : | 2003 |
Rating : | 7 |
Studio : | Cinema Service, Hanmac Films, |
Crew : | Art Designer, Production Design, |
Cast : | Sol Kyung-gu Ahn Sung-ki Heo Joon-ho Jung Jae-young Im Won-hee |
Genre : | Drama Action |
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Reviews
Simply Perfect
Brilliant and touching
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
If you were expecting a war movie, you won't find it here. This is a film about an assassination attempt...that didn't happen. Although I realize it has a purpose, I did not enjoy the brutal training sessions. I found it rather distasteful. The film's first 44 minutes are dedicated to training. Pardon me, but me thinks that's just a tad too much!Hailed as one of the best Korean films, I found it dreadful to watch. The film is filled with scenes that doesn't move it forward - or in any direction for that matter. It was boring. I couldn't wait for this senseless film to end. I believe this is based on a true story, but the story is just so pathetic that I can't understand why a film was made about it and why anyone should care about it. Well, at least I thought the music was good.Summary (SPOILER): Convicts are trained for a mission to kill the North Korean President. Mission cancelled. The soldiers who trained the convicts are then ordered to 'terminate' them. They fail. The convicts then decide to kill the President themselves. They fail miserably. So the purpose of the film is...???? Am I missing something here???
I like South Korea war dramas, and the premises of Silmido (in Korean - 실미도) seemed to be an absolute winning formulas. Sadly, the film is a major disappointment and failed on many angles. It is far too long, far too slow, far too predictable, far too pathetic, and it lacks any redeeming feature. Yeah, the real events of 6834 Silmido groups were tragic but one could depict them better and less that pathetic. Training scenes are far too prolonged and quickly become a real bore. Dialogs are often empty and also lack depth or any credit to them. The uprising sequence is also far too predictable and suffers a lot from high-blown phrases and long, very long final scene. The good things are again the exquisite depiction of Korean nature, the great camera work and an excellent sound production. Sadly, again, but hey do not deliver the film to a better level and only underline how generally poor the execution is. Can be watched and then discarded
I start to watch this movie two days after I watched Brotherhood of War. I believe that Korean movies can be very good. Silmido was a disappointment for me. My rating probably should be lower but movie defend itself by one thing. It is based on true story... Korean history even. What is interested in this movie ? Relations between soldiers and group of bandits. The way they became soldiers and patriots. And here is the weak point of the movie for me... The reason they want to realize the plan created by authorities. They don't want to free themselves they want to free all SouthKorean. So if You asked if watch or not to watch I say watch if You have enough time and did not watch Brotherhood of War :). OK,OK... There was tear in my eye during the final scene. But I m human after all.
As the South Korean movie industry matures, more of their feature movies should become of interest to mainstream western audiences. Silmido is one of these movies.The Korean peninsula continues to experience behind-the-scenes low intensity engagements between the two nations. Set in the 1960's, the nK strikes at the ROK leadership and prompts a response. The KCIA sponsors the formation of a special army unit to strike back at Pyongyang. Comprised of civil prisoners and other outcasts, the movie follows their formation, training, and deployment.The film covers a great deal of cultural ground. The viewer gets a sense of the male-dominated, hierarchical government with its intrigues and power brokers. The spartan living conditions, training and discipline are not inconsistent with ROK practices. The motto used in the film - "Loyalty" - illustrates the conservative bent of the military system and the social schism which exists between it and the South Korean people at large. The film could have used "Strength and Honor" from Gladiator to the same effect. As a code of behavior, the concept of loyalty is the thematic underpinning for the major plot turns.While lacking some of the pacing and plot roll-out elements of first tier film efforts, Silmido still delivers an interesting story line and succeeds as an action movie. It offers a harsh indictment of the government's leadership, not unlike American Viet Nam conflict movies, and the viewer is left with a perspective of Korean soldiers as army ants whose sole function is to live and die protecting their society.