Pohwasogeuro

The true story, directed by John H. Lee (A Moment to Remember) about South Korean student unit of 71 soldiers who was left to defend the girls middle school during the Battle of Pohang during the peek of North Korea's invasion of South in 1950. That 71 students defended that position for 11 hours against a North Korean army brigade and the film was inspired by the letters of one of that soldiers. Out of 71 members of the unit, only three had combat experience, while others have not undergone any training before the battle, which makes their resistance unbelievable.

The story focuses on two soldiers, Oh Jung-Bum, frightened and lost commander of the unit who only got the position because of his experience that was minimal, and Ku Kap-Jo, convicted of murder who enlisted in the Army to avoid jail. A good part of the story rests on their conflict and on development of their relationship as well as their relationship with the rest of the unit. Character development is uncommonly done. Oh Jung-Bum changes from a scared kid who couldn't even shot from the gun to brave commander absurdly fast, while Ku Kap-Jo's path is approximately opposite and just as fast, if not faster. In this context, we can mention the North Korean captain Park Mu-Rang which is extremely difficult to characterize as he's almost like another character in almost every scene, while only he's egotism stays.

Performance is standard Asian, full of melodrama, highlighting the pride and courage, and a somewhat caricature acting that is pretty solid here. Cha Seung-won is far form being brilliant in lead role of Oh Jung-Bum, almost completely without emotions, as if he was forced to act in this movie. The rest of the acting team did a solid job. The pace of storytelling is perfect, not one scene is redundant, although movie could work without humorous parts they deliver, alongside humor, additional characterization of the characters. It's a simple, dynamic story with which time goes by quickly. There's no objections to the visual part of the film. A solid budget of 10mil dollars was well used, the effects look almost authentic. Final battle looks really impressive, although it can not be overlooked that it was somewhat idealized.

Film lacks historical context which is not surprising given that, as usually happens with Far Eastern cinema, it's made for their market so they didn't feel like it's necessarily to explain situation, but however, it does not affect much on the experience of the film since the theme is universal, and 71: Into the Fire is one of the better war movies lately.

The movie is great because they did not try to make it huge: it was just telling a simple story about 71 young student learning and struggling in the real war.

The main actor: Choi Seung Hyeon (who is also known as TOP in Big Bang) did a great job. He acts impressively with his eyes, showing us how a student knowing nothing becomes to get to fight, to kill for the sake of his own team. Other actors did not show the best of them, especially Kwon Sang Woo. He could do better than that, but I feel that the character he played was not fully described. The music was not very impressive to me, however the effect was quite real and well-done for a Asian war movie. Since this is based on a true story, the end can easily be predicted, but that does not mean it was a boring end. They show us how people die in war: they may have different backgrounds but still can become real soldier once needed.

As I know little about the Korean War apart from MASH I didn't really know what to expect. I was very impressed and surprised at how good 71 is. The true story of the 71 students who defended their line for 11 hours against the might of the communist North is told with passion, humor, and action. It is somewhat clichéd - but this works in its favor - what we get is a Braveheart feeling for a small but very well-made war film.

The two main leads are competent, if a little OTT in their roles, but again by the end this pays off and I really have no complaints - if moving, and exciting war films are your thing then this is definitely worth viewing.

The best Korean War films are made by the South Koreans. Starting around 2010, they started getting really good at creating sometimes remarkable battle scenes. Although the script structure follows (apparently globally) established 'war film' formulae, this is a very well done South Korean, based on a real event, 'Alamo' story filmed in the style of 'Saving Private Ryan'. Anyone with an ongoing list of notable war films should be interested.

I first read about this movie on a Korean site looking up Korean entertainment, it was probably up pretty quick since it has the Korean rapper TOP in it who is in a popular K-pop group Big Bang. Anyways I also managed to watch the trailers on YouTube and it looked promising, and I must say the trailer was better than the actual movie itself after viewing. I felt a lot of the characters went to waste, like the nurse for instance who just treats Seung-hyeon Choi wounds and doesn't appear for the rest of the movie. The movie would have been so much better if it was more engaging and you actually care for the character and you do care a bit but not enough to really worry if they die or live. The film also seems to rely to much on the cinematography since the camera changes constantly but not really effectively. It just constantly switches to TOP's facial expressions a LOT, but I guess it's to please the fan girls while the guys enjoy the action scenes. TOP's acting got better but it's just passable and Kwon Sang-Woo really overdoes it in order to stand out but just comes off as obnoxious, but he did have his moments. Cha Seung-Won did a fine job of playing the charismatic North Korean commander although his scenes are very few, he did a fine job, just not very memorable. I wished it found a way to get more in depth with the characters cause most of them didn't really stand out to me. Another annoying aspect of the film is how the North Korean soldiers fights like retarded drones that is just asking to get shot by running straight into bullets, yeah it's a movie but it got irritating to watch cause of the stupidity. I know they tried to make the final scene all epic, but I couldn't help but roll my eyes. I didn't feel cheated while walking out of the theaters, but was a bit let down. I also noticed there were more girls in the theater seats than guys, I guess TOP makes up for his lack of acting skills in order to get the female viewers to go watch his movie. Like Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner in the "Twilight" movies. Anyways good movie with a average plot and pretty cardboard characters and a lot of stuff blowing up.

7.1/10