Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War Reviews

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10

It's powerfully moving and thoroughly involving, although rather over-constructed.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

The beauty of writer/director Je-gyu Kang's work is his ability to gloss over the dramatic deficiencies with some of the best combat footage ever.

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Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Tae Guk Gi joins the ranks of classic war epics, besting many of the Hollywood movies it aims to emulate.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5

The battle scenes are amazing in their scope and vehemence. But in the breaks between fighting, the movie reminds us that the costs of war can exceed the loss of life and limb.

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Tae Guk Gi is The Deer Hunter and Saving Private Ryan for South Korea's burgeoning cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

What really separates Tae Guk Gi from Private Ryan's ilk is that the conflicted Koreans fight desperately in their own backyard, as opposed to U.S. movie soldiers who are always on an adventure abroad.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Although flawed, the film is obviously successful in bringing to life what has been called the 20th century's 'forgotten war.'

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

For fans of New Korean Cinema with strong stomachs for violence and melodrama, there's a lot to love.

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While Tae Guk Gi's horrific imagery is peppered throughout with moments of surreal beauty, it remains one of the most realistic depictions of battlefield chaos I can think of.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Even with its overemotional moments, it's more honest than most.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

Brutal yet meaningful, agonizing yet touching, The Brotherhood of War is a harrowing but rewarding experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4

Worth seeing for its sheer otherness at a time when Americans are forced to look increasingly at the outside world for new information.

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Thanks to its excess, and even at 140 minutes, Tae Guk Gi always entertains, just like Pearl Harbor and the rest of the best of Hollywood's dumb war movies.

Full Review | Original Score: B

...it's not only one of the year's best films, but it may be one of the all-time great war movies

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Kang isn't just Korea's preeminent big-budget director -- he's one of the best big-scale filmmakers in the world.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Fearless extremity...Brotherhood finally coalesces into an inescapable metaphor illustrating the madness of civil war.

| Original Score: 2.5/4

A complex film about the minefield of loyalty and betrayal.

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