The battle scenes are terrifically filmed, often reaching Private Ryan's level of intensity, and despite your better judgment, you do get caught up in the melodrama.
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09/03/04
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Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (2004)
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Reviews Counted:40
Fresh:32
Rotten:8
Average Rating:6.7/10
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Reviews for Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War
There's nothing subtle in the symbolism of this operatic melodrama, in which emotion overcomes reason... (but) that runaway passion is also what drives the film.
09/03/04
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.
03/11/05
Fearless extremity...Brotherhood finally coalesces into an inescapable metaphor illustrating the madness of civil war.
09/04/04
While it comes on like a flag-waver, it actually delivers something more nuanced.
09/02/04
It's powerfully moving and thoroughly involving, although rather over-constructed.
04/06/05
Although flawed, the film is obviously successful in bringing to life what has been called the 20th century's 'forgotten war.'
11/12/04
Top CriticTae Guk Gi joins the ranks of classic war epics, besting many of the Hollywood movies it aims to emulate.
02/17/05
Shot on a lavish scale, the film unfortunately suffers from maudlin plotting and severe overacting.
09/07/04
Writer/director Kang Je-gyu dedicates himself to the human side of a grand tale, to people who've been uprooted by history.
09/02/04
Top CriticKang remains a superb technician, but somewhere the movie forgot to pack any genuine emotion along with its ordnance and K rations.
08/23/04
Top CriticLater scenes in Brotherhood make mad, passionate love with being cliched.
12/09/04
At times the performances seem more akin to the histrionics of old silent movies, when emotions had to be seen because they couldn't be heard.
11/12/04
Top CriticA tough and honest film.
09/03/04
Top CriticEpic in scope and violent in a way that every war film has to be since Saving Private Ryan, Taegukgi is a big-time movie that never loses sight of its human story.
09/03/04
Top CriticMelodramatic and exciting view about a war (in Korea) rarely filmed.
09/02/04
The film does offer Western viewers rare access to another country's innermost anxieties and contradictions, and as such is a fascinating document.
09/02/04
Top CriticThanks 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.
09/09/04
Top Critic...take a number of its cues from Saving Private Ryan...it's overall tone, however, is more melodramatic.
09/02/04
Even with its overemotional moments, it's more honest than most.
09/30/04
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