By GI Korea on April 19th, 2010 at at 8:28 am

First Review of the No Gun Ri Movie

Mike McStay in Daejon has the first review I have seen done on the recently released No Gun Ri movie “A Little Pond”. Here is how Mike sums up the movie:

I then sat down and waited for the film to start and after it was over I kept thinking, I just saw the finest North Korean Propaganda film ever made. I even waited to the end to see if the film has a poster or a photograph of either Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-il.

The film had Russians trying to play American soldiers and it never worked for me. You had a really heroic North Korean child appear after the incident to play to the audience. I also thought that the film poster and many scenes from this film were lifted straight from North Korea Propaganda posters denouncing the USA soldiers as baby killers. I really could not believe that I had actually seen all of this. [Socius]

You can read the rest at the link, but it appears the movie is about as bad as I expected. Has anyone else seen the movie and willing to comment as well?

Movie Review: A Little Pond 작은 연못 (Jak-eun Yeon-mot)

The movie is based on the alleged No Gun Ri Massacre during the Korean War (1950-53).
For a quick look at the story please click here



In 2010, the 60th anniversary of the Korean War is being remembered with various movies and TV shows appearing in South Korea. What this film does is to look at No Gun Ri Bridge and claim that the US Army massacred innocent Korean refugees during the Korean War.

I had first heard of this incident back in 1999 when a report by Charles Hanley was published by the Associated Press back in September 1999. This story quoted nine former U.S. soldiers, including Ed Daily, who claimed that he machine gunned refugees and could, "still hear their cries, the little kids screaming." The AP won the Pulitzer Prize for this story in 2000. U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a statement of regret in January 2001. I then remember Mr. Daily being flown back to Korea to be interviewed by Tom Brokaw and his confession of his role in the story.

But I then remember that people were challenging this story and the best rebuttal I could find was GI Korea speech to the Seoul Rotary Club, which is linked here. In which he attempts to explain what really happened during that incident.

So I knew about all of the above before I went to see this film. If you notice the film poster has the quote, "Kill them all." What I found sad about this is that the quote that the person alleged to make at this time was later to have been proven that he was not even at the No Gin Ri Bridge at the time of the incident.

I then sat down and waited for the film to start and after it was over I kept thinking, I just saw the finest North Korean Propaganda film ever made. I even waited to the end to see if the film has a poster or a photograph of either Kim Il-sung or Kim Jong-il.

The film had Russians trying to play American soldiers and it never worked for me. You had a really heroic North Korean child appear after the incident to play to the audience. I also thought that the film poster and many scenes from this film were lifted straight from North Korea Propaganda posters denouncing the USA soldiers as baby killers. I really could not believe that I had actually seen all of this.

But, in the end, this is just a film. No more nor no less. It did not do that good on its opening week and looks like it will not make back any profit for MK Pictures.

Please pass on this film and save your money for something else.

This is what I said about this film earlier with my top films of the year list.



#9 BEST FILM OF THE YEAR..

In my country, the USA, I have seen sports films talk about why men or teams are heroes ,Miracle, how they handle trouble, We Are Marshall and some even how they handle the death that will soon become them, as in The Pride of the Yankees.

In this film we are shown a young man, Michael Oher (played by Quinton Aaron) has been in foster care with many foster parents. But he is given a chance in a private school and is noticed by one of the students mothers, Leigh Anne Tuohy. For some reason, she offers to help Michael and the family soon adopts him. You see how a strong mother figure turns the boy into a first round draft choice of the Baltimore Ravens. For her performance, Sandra Bullock won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama and later the Academy Award for Best Actress.

I really thought very highly of this film, so much that I purchased this film the first day it came out on Blu-ray disc. What I really liked about it was the fact that
the film let Sandra be herself and she ran with it. If you have read the book then you'll notice how much of this film was given to Sandra's character and how much was taken from Tim McGraw's character Sean Tuohy.

Overall if you are looking for a good film to see this week then please see this one. I think that you'll like it.

Grade: A+

Leigh Anne Touhy: Michael, I want you to have a good time but if you get a girl pregnant out of wedlock, I will crawl into the car, drive up to Oxford and cut off your penis.
S.J. Tuohy: She's not kidding.