71 - Into the Fire [DVD] [2010]

I was looking forward to seeing this one as I am a fan of Korean cinema. This follows in the wake of many other excellent films from South Korea telling some of the stories that came out of their still ongoing civil war.

Once again this is based on `actual events' that took place on August 11th 1950, when a group of volunteer `Student Soldiers' held back a North Korean commando brigade. They are hopelessly outnumbered being only 71 in number and hence the title of the film, but show remarkable ingenuity and tenacity. It is slightly reminiscent of the German WW 2 film 'Die Brucke' or The Bridge,The Bridge (Die Brucke) [DVD] [1959] where school children are left to defend a bridge against overwhelming odds, but this has buckets more action.

The events unfold in a mix of real time and some flash backs which help to create empathy for the main characters, who are all desperately young and most still in school uniforms.

The action scenes are regular and bloody, they have built on the incredible realism that we saw in films like `Brotherhood',Brotherhood [DVD] [2004]and the excellent 'Assembly'Assembly [2007] [DVD] and first came to the fore in the West with `Saving Private Ryan'. Like those films, this is in Korean with English sub titles. I do not want to give away any plot spoilers as this is a rollicking rollercoaster from start to finish, during the more contemplative moments I was actually glad for a breather, such is the intensity of this film. It is 116 minutes long, which seems like a long film, but the time just flew past and there is so much action in it I feel I will have to view this again to be sure I did not miss too much. There are some plot holes and quite clearly this is `based' on actual events, all of that aside this is one of the best films I have seen in ages.

As usual i just want to let you the reader know what you get for your money first.The version i am reviewing is the two disc UK Region 2 version.Those of you who like dubbed movies will be disapointed as you can only have the audio in Korean 2.0 Stereo or Korean 5.1 Dolby Digital.The subtitles are also only in English.Being a UK version its not suprising really and my own personal preference is to watch a film in its original language with subtitles so this didn't bother me in the least.There are however a massive 100 mins of extras on the second disc including deleted scenes,behind the scenes,trailers,documentaries and much more.So much so that i have not had time to see all the extras yet so can't comment on the quality of them.So overall the package looks good value for money.
Based upon a true story(how much is true we dont know)it tells the story of 71 student soldiers tasked to defend a small village called Pohang.The rest of the division has left them to go and fight at the major battle of Nakdong river briefly shown in the superior Brotherhood [Special Collector's Edition] [DVD].Of the 71 only three of the student soldiers have combat experience which was usually as ammunition carriers.Despite their handicap they held off the elite North Korean 766 Commando Brigade for an astonishing 11 hours.
As for the film itself i thought it was a very good film with a story that needed to be told.If only to show what we do to young boys when we send them to war.For me it just stopped short of being great though.I would like to have seen another 30 mins on the runtime so that some of the more interesting characters could be explored.The North Korean Commander played brilliantly by the way is a great example of this.Now we know that Saving Private Ryan raised the bar for such films depicting the true horror of war and this film itself does boast some fantastic battle scenes to the likes that i have never seen before.The cinematogrophy is breathtaking and throughout the film the production values are as good as anything Hollywood has to offer.All the actors do a more than adequate job and the direction is sharp and to the point.Overall a good film worth watching that could have been great with more focus on the story and characters.

The Story is based on 71 Student soldiers, who fought in the battle at Pohang Girls Middle School on August 11th 1950. The Student soldiers kept the North Koreans back for 11hrs, a key role was played in the Korean and Allied Forces Counterattacks.

Truly amazing battle scences of Saving Private Ryan and Assembly.
A MUST FOR ALL WAR FILM FANS !!