If Korea got its “Saving Private Ryan” with “Taegukgi,” it will soon get its “Band of Brothers,” too.
Logos Film announced yesterday that it will soon begin production of “Road No. 1,” a 10-part miniseries dealing with the Korean War.
The title refers to National Road No. 1, which ran from Seoul to Pyongyang at the time of the war.
The drama will focus on a Korean Army Academy cadet who learns about war the hard way when the Korean War breaks out in 1950.
About comparisons with “Band of Brothers,” Logos Film said, “If ‘Band of Brothers’ described war from the view of US soldiers involved in a foreign war, ‘Road No. 1′ will depict the human pain and dehumanization experienced by a combat soldier in the Korean War.”
To preserve the reality of it all, producers are going to do the drama in a documentary style, following the movements of the ROK 1st Corps from the Nakdong Perimeter to the capture of Pyongyang.
Filming will begin in August. The drama should run on MBC from June 2009.
Logos Film, which will spend some 10-12 billion won the project, said it was talking to the UN (Command, I’d imagine), Defense Ministry and local governments to help overseas distribution, and that it would get started on overseas marketing by hiring a foreign producer.
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12 Comments
It’s too bad that they are not including the first several weeks of the war. If nothing else, a depiction of Korean forces getting overrun, coducting suicide attacks against T-34s and retreating all the way to Daegu would provide some balance to the series.
BTW, I am about to finish Paik Sun Yup’s “From Pusan to Panmunjom,” which is a must-read for anyone who wants to read about the war from a Korean prespective.
I don’t know that they’re not. In fact, I’d be surprised if they didn’t.
I want to be a Yankee soldier in the show! Sign me up!
I’d actually be interested in watching this when it airs.
How original.
You have a Russian or Nigerian accent?
This movie better not portray Korea in a negative light in anyway bc Kim Seong Kon will have a field day.
Prediction: I guarantee that Americans will be portrayed as savage blood-thirsty rapists shooting at everything that moves. Oh, with the exception of one cheesy scene where one single American soldier manages to show the humane side of Americans by giving away a Hershey’s bar to a dirty little Korean boy with dribbling snot covering his face.
“…producers are going to do the drama in a documentary style, following the movements of the ROK 1st Corps from the Nakdong Perimeter to the capture of Pyongyang….”
I can’t read the Korean link, but taken literally this would mean that the series only covers a couple months of the war (holding of the Pusan perimeter, approx late July 1950, through the successful MacArthur counteroffensive (Inchon landing 15 Sep 1950), through capture of Pyongyang (19 Oct 50)).
Band of Brothers covered a period of approx 2 years (sometime in 1943 through August 1945). So it would seem logical for this Korean mini-series to cover more of the war than the first year.
I got the idea that the first few weeks would not be covered from this part of the post: “..following the movements of the ROK 1st Corps from the Nakdong Perimeter to the capture of Pyongyang.” That would seem to exclude everything before the Nakdong Perimeter was established.
Perhaps that was a mistype?
It had better reflect that men from nations other than the US came here and died for them.
A recent documentary on British TV followed two ex-servicemen to revisit Korea. They said of Korea’s War Museum, “It’s a great museum - if you’re a Yank or a Korean. We haven’t seen anything from the UK yet. According to this place, we were never in the war. It was just the Yanks and the Koreans. What about the Canadians, British, the Kiwis, Australians or Turks? Very very very disappointed to tell the truth.”
http://www.s4c.co.uk/e_watch_level2.shtml?title=O‘r%20Galon:%20Cyn-filwyr%20Corea
If they are going to talk about war crimes and human rights abuses, they should not stop at Americans and North Koreans. Are they willing to discuss the kangaroo courts in which thousands of ‘communist’ who had been jailed in the 40’s were executed to make space for North Korean POW? How about how people were dragged into the streets and beaten to death because neighbors wanting to settle old grudges had told the authorities that they were communist spies? Sure, the North Koreans were much worse in their treatment of civilians, but we all had the blood of innocents on our hands during the Korean war.
Andy J, I read the General’s book about 5 years ago, it is a good read, he is one of the greatest General’s that commanded soldiers in combat. He has a lesser know brother that was also a kick ass Commander.