Did producers of the new South Korean film "Heaven's Soldiers" foresee that the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program would resume in late July? The plot of "Heaven's Soldiers" revolves around a group of South and North Korean soldiers who make an unexpected trip through time to the past, while their countries are in feud with the United States over their joint development of a nuclear warhead.
From director Min Jun Gi comes the 2005 film Heaven's Soldiers, a nationalistic, military-themed time travel adventure filled with equal parts action and comedy! The story centers on a group of North and South Korean soldiers who find themselves flung back in time just as their respective countries are locked in a tense standoff with the United States over the status of a jointly produced nuclear warhead. The film kicks off with stock footage of the historic meeting between the two Korean leaders in June 2000, using this real life moment as a springboard for the film's fictional premise that North and South Korea secretly formed an alliance, agreeing to co-produce their very own weapon of mass destruction! But when the two Koreas decide to hand over the warhead to the United States, North Korean military officer Kang Min Gil (Kim Seung Woo) decides to take matters into his own hands and not only steal the weapon with the help of a band of private soldiers but kidnap the female South Korean scientist (Kong Hyo Jin) who helped create it as well! Things get even more difficult for Kang as South Korean Navy Officer Park Jeong Woo (Hwang Jung Min) is sent by his superiors to capture the rogue soldier and reclaim the weapon. In the midst of a battle on the DMZ, the soldiers are suddenly transported through time thanks to the appearance of a mysterious comet.
In a blink of the eye, the soldiers find themselves trapped in the 16th century, a dark time in Korean history, which saw its countrymen spending most of their time battling off the advances of foreign invaders. After defeating a band of looters with their high-powered machine guns, the time displaced soldiers are hailed as conquering heroes by the locals. Dubbed "Heaven's Soldiers," the group ends up meeting Yi Sun Shin (Park Joong Hoon), the real life admiral who led Korea to victory against the Japanese.
However, the legendary Yi isn't quite what the soldiers expected. Rather than the mythical hero of legend he's thought to be in the present day, the Yi the soldiers encounter is actually a thief and a rascal, one who can't even pass the officer's exam! Shocked that their hero could be so lax in his studies, the soldiers give Yi a crash course in military education, all in the hopes he'll fulfill his destiny! But will Yi discover his true calling in time or will he doom both himself and his beloved country? Find out in Heaven's Soldiers, a crowd-pleasing time travel epic!
