During the Korean War two soldiers from the South and three from the North end up in the desolate mountain village Dongmakgol whose inhabitants have no idea of the ongoing war, or the separation for that matter.
The five soldiers coming straight from the battlefield of course see each other as enemies resulting in a tense, hilarious and ultimately stupid standoff with the villagers caught in between. After all it’s Koreans aiming with rifles at Koreans with Koreans in the middle. But somehow that clusterfuck of a situation gets resolved and the villagers teach all five Korean soldiers that they all are humans, just by taking care of them without any prejudice.
Add to that an American pilot who crash-landed…

A little bizarre, absurd and nonsensical funny war/comedy/drama/romance film from South-Korea that actually manages to juggle different genres and stir up a wide array of different emotions really well. And hey, finally a war-film with brilliant colors instead of bombing the entire film with sepia/bleached tones!

The plot is simple; 5 Koreans meet up in a desolate, cute village whom somehow never got the news that the Korean War had broken out. Hilarity ensues as a sort of "clash-between-cultures" film, just far more heartfelt and sweet than those films usually are, because of some wonderfully off-beat characters mixed up with normal characters. They even kick it back to the Hong-Kong's action cinema of the 1980's for a short 5 minutes…

Kimchi flavored Fellini that undoes itself by abandoning its beguiling charm early on in favor of the usual rote anti-American bullshit, with levels of histrionic melodrama that feel excessive even for a Korean production, balanced out with levels of inane quirkiness that renders it all the more patronizing. Have no doubt that heartstrings will be pulled, that tear ducts will produce lacrimal fluid by force if necessary. It wants to be KING OF HEARTS, it wants to be SEVEN SAMURAI, it wants to be NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS and of course it wants to be SAVING PRIVATE RYAN so bad it manufactures a series of stunningly retarded contrivances to get the old tears a-flowin' with not one but two…

Welcom to Dongmankgol (also know as Battle Ground 625) is a rather innocuous dramedy about soldiers reclaiming their humanity and befriending their enemies. Set in what seems like a pre-industrial village forgotten by time and inhabited by naively peaceful people, the story is almost like a fairy tale and there are definitely some elements of magical realism in the movie. It’s quite slow paced, however, and it doesn’t have as strong an emotional punch as it probably thinks it does. Some of the dramatic elements are very underdeveloped (including two potential romantic subplots and a character’s war trauma that’s suddenly shown never to be addressed again) and the comedy isn’t that powerful, either. The result is a blend where neither…

Kimchi flavored Fellini that undoes itself by abandoning its beguiling charm early on in favor of the usual rote anti-American bullshit, with levels of histrionic melodrama that feel excessive even for a Korean production, balanced out with levels of inane quirkiness that renders it all the more patronizing. Have no doubt that heartstrings will be pulled, that tear ducts will produce lacrimal fluid by force if necessary. It wants to be KING OF HEARTS, it wants to be SEVEN SAMURAI, it wants to be NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS and of course it wants to be SAVING PRIVATE RYAN so bad it manufactures a series of stunningly retarded contrivances to get the old tears a-flowin' with not one but two…