Over at Big Hollywood, Brad Schaeffer is putting together a list of five films for those looking to remember and honor those who fought the Korean War.
So far, he’s got three up — “Tae Guk Ki,” “M*A*S*H” and “The Manchurian Candidate.” Interestingly, “Tae Guk Ki” will be the only one made in the last four decades. I imagine “The Bridges at Toko-Ri” will be added shortly… and if not, it should be.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
How can you forget Sam Fuller’s The Steel Helmet, which should be at the top of any Korean war film list.
Don’t forget Inchon!!
A Hill in Korea (sort of a fictionalized version of Gloster Hill) and All the Young Men are on my list, too.
Personally, I thought Tae Guk Ki, M*A*S*H and both versions of The Manchurian Candidate sucked eggs. Well, actually I thought worse; but that’s just because I hate communism, unlike those who pretend to love liberty and yet spend all their time spreading fecal matter on any capitalist or democracy they can find.
I have yet to see the new one about the kids defending the school; but it looks like a Saving Private Ryan ripoff. I’ll try to see it anyway because I like last stand movies (Zulu, The Alamo, 300, etc…).
If anyone’s interested, I just finished a 17 minute documentary about an Australian pilot who was shot down in the Korean War. I was hoping to get commissioned to make a bigger doco, but it didn’t work out, so I’ve posted what I finished online here. I’d love some feedback re editing / ideas for a longer version. I’m still toying with the idea of stitching 4 or 5 stories together and making an hour of it, so if you know of any Koreans / Americans / Turks who have a tale to tell about the war, I’d love to know.
(or Brits, Chinese, Canadians, etc for that matter)
JSA is not really a war movie, but it’s a great look at the post war relationship between the two countries.
hamel,
I actually have Inchon on DVD. It’s not a bad movie considering that Terence Young probably had an old Korean ajoshi (in the form of Sun Myung Moon and his minions) over his shoulder the whole time.
WangKon, maybe you have what I have – a burnt DVD of a download of the one time that Inchon was shown on some Moonie owned US cable TV channel (I can’t see how you have anything else, since it was never – to my knowledge) released for commercial sale on DVD or even VHS.
I have seen the first hour or so, and yes, you could say, “it’s not that bad” except for the completely anachronistic costumes (Jacqueline Bisset would NEVER have worn such a low cut dress in 1950 Korea or even the USA).
hamel,
Yep, that’s the one. Ripped from a Moonie owned cable station. My dad really liked Inchon and I sorta liked it too, but I was like 10-12 years old when my dad took me to go see it. I look at it now and I can see why most critics gave it an F-.
Still, I can see how it would appeal to Koreans who remember the Korean War… especially how MacArthur was sort of a “god”-like (or Christ-like) figure in that movie as may South Koreans of that generation saw him as such.
On one hand, I don’t know how Korea can be called The Forgotten War when MASH was one of the most popular TV shows of all time. On the other hand, the topic is film, not TV; MASH (the movie) was really about Vietnam; and there really aren’t any other major Korean War films. (The Manchurian Candidate uses that war only as background; and you can count the number of waygoogin who’ve seen Tae Kug Gi on the fingers of one hand.) Korea HAS been forgotten by Hollywood.
How about the best books, non-fiction and fiction? For the former, I’d nominate the late David Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter. For the latter, Ha Jin’s War Trash, about the experiences of a Chinese POW on Koje-do.
The Bridges at Toko-Ri has some amazing aerial sequences.
I also can’t believe he forgot The Steel Helmet, which frankly has much more to do with the Korean War than MASH (which is actually “about” Vietnam).
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