An incident that takes place at night in poor visibility and perpetrated by a rather over-enthusiastic soldier wreaks havoc on a local community. Mistaking a ground-level head that he sees in his night-vision goggles for that of a spy, the soldier opens fire, then as the poor guy crawls desperately away, he is blown to smithereens with a grenade. Presumably this is what the soldier is trained to do, as he is rewarded for his bravery and given a week's furlough to pull himself together.
Turns out the dead guy was an innocent local, who was killed as he was making love to his girlfriend in a forbidden area of the beach. Naturally, the girlfriend is traumatised by the incident which sends her mad. She starts hanging around the base, clinging to any and all soldiers she finds, mistaking them for her boyfriend. The soldiers are rather obliging, and she winds up pregnant.
The soldier, who also experiences an estrangement from rational thought, is discharged and he too begins to haunt the base, gradually becoming more and more unhinged, and taking revenge on the unit he feels has betrayed him.
Also known as The Coast Guard, this film sheds no new light on anything (unless you're unfamiliar with the existence of two Koreas). I could see no real point to it - all the themes it raises are not resolved. nor are the incidents at all realistic. If the aim of this film was to make a kind of fable, it's a failure. If you want to see a film that has heart, drama, reality and An Actual Point, see Joint Security Area - JSA (2000, director Park Chan-wook)
Turns out the dead guy was an innocent local, who was killed as he was making love to his girlfriend in a forbidden area of the beach. Naturally, the girlfriend is traumatised by the incident which sends her mad. She starts hanging around the base, clinging to any and all soldiers she finds, mistaking them for her boyfriend. The soldiers are rather obliging, and she winds up pregnant.
The soldier, who also experiences an estrangement from rational thought, is discharged and he too begins to haunt the base, gradually becoming more and more unhinged, and taking revenge on the unit he feels has betrayed him.
Also known as The Coast Guard, this film sheds no new light on anything (unless you're unfamiliar with the existence of two Koreas). I could see no real point to it - all the themes it raises are not resolved. nor are the incidents at all realistic. If the aim of this film was to make a kind of fable, it's a failure. If you want to see a film that has heart, drama, reality and An Actual Point, see Joint Security Area - JSA (2000, director Park Chan-wook)