Die Insel Wolmi

WOLMI ISLAND is an interesting film, naturally, as it paints a picture of the Korean War from the side of the North Koreans for a change. This is a fairly small scale war movie in which the narrative focuses down on the attempts by North Korean soldiers to defend their island territory from the overwhelming forces of the imperialist villains, the USA.

For a North Korean movie, this is chock-full of the expected propaganda, hilariously so at the climax when it goes completely over the top during a song in which the soldiers extol the virtue of driving the 'gangsters' from their land. Elsewhere, there's a little action involving the blowing up of ships (good miniature effects) and artillery attacks, plus some tactical stuff as the soldiers attempt to work out how to defend their territory with extremely limited resources.

Unfortunately, a stodgy pacing and a general lack of excitement and action in places serve to drag enjoyment of this film a little, and there's too much back-and-forth stuff in the plot to drag it out. The female lead in particular is a dull, worthy figure who spends too much time moping around and worrying when she should be getting on with stuff; at least the ending is satisfying. WOLMI ISLAND is definitely worth it as a novelty piece, however.

Where to start here? Imagine the worst possible Soviet Union Russian war movie - bad plot, trite events, loud and empty slogans, obvious lack of funding, awful music, pathetic dialogues, terrible camera work, predictable lines, predictable deaths, laughs, horrid musical singing number in the middle, pompous funeral scene, unimaginably poor editing, amateurish attempt of bestowing propaganda ideas - all this - now, get it onto North Korea, get it in Korean and voila, you get a monstrously bad war movie with all those smart and wise commanders, comedy-touch fat cooks, Young sweet innocent girls, loud words, laughable battle scenes - and you get a really abysmal result that it is so poor one must virtually fasten seat belts to suffer this abomination all through. No redeeming features here, plain horrid

This movie concerns itself with the surprise landing at Inchon by United Nations forces during the Korean War. Naturally, being a North Korean movie, it is filmed from their point-of-view and therefore certain minor discrepancies here and there are to be expected, all things considered. Likewise, the tendency to exaggerate facts is also to be expected with any film production as well. It happens all the time in Hollywood, so why should any other production company or studio be held to a different standard? However, the problem with this particular film isn't so much the exaggerations or the observations as presented from a different point-of-view as much as the fact that it paints a totally different picture than what actually took place. For example, according to this movie, a North Korean artillery company not only held off the entire U. N. fleet for 3 or 4 days, but also inflicted severe damage upon it as well. That was not the case at all. Although North Korean propagandists want people to believe that 13 U. N. warships were sunk and cost the invasion force massive casualties, the fact of the matter is that there was just one U. S. casualty and only one ship (the U. S. S. Collett) which had to withdraw from combat due to enemy gunfire--and it returned the next day. That's it. And as far as the North Korean soldiers were concerned, they received a severe pounding--to the extent that when the U. S. Marines finally invaded the island there was hardly any resistance at all. As a matter of fact, some of these marines were surprised when 6 North Korean soldiers forced one of their own officers to strip naked prior to surrendering. In other words, there wasn't this great commitment to General Kim Il Sung as depicted in this film at all. Now, as far as the other aspects of this movie is concerned, I must confess that there were a few scenes which were done quite well. However, there were also some scenes that have to be seen to be believed. One case in particular has this young girl named "Yong Ok" (Yung Su Gyong) singing to the soldiers in an operatic voice that clearly belonged to a much older woman. It's quite humorous actually. Additionally, there are several scenes where soldiers suddenly get a strange look of admiration on their face whenever the name of General Kim Il Sung is brought up. Again, you have to see it to believe it. In short, given the historical inaccuracies and the blatant displays of propaganda, I don't give this film much credence and recommend it only for its possible comedic value and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

Watching Wolmi Island was a rather interesting experience this being my the first NK movie. I went into this not knowing what to expect, except maybe some funny cheesiness. Well I got what I expected but also a lot more.

The movie tells the story of Wolmi Island defense force and its desperate struggle against an overwhelming attack force. As would be expected it has some propaganda elements along with a few scenes are so over the top that they are absolutely hilarious but the story isn't about the evil imperialists but rather how this group of people deals with the increasingly desperate situation they're in.

The movie features a good amount of memorable and well done scenes that deliver emotional impact, though occasionally they are a tad over the top. I think the characters work, story and its conveying of the sentiment works. If you like cheesy emotionally charged war movies and can appreciate a film being a product of its environment and time then I would recommend giving this one a chance.