The Front Line

Both brutal and sentimental, this Oscar-submitted Korean war drama offers up rusty tropes as telling ironies. Full Review

A huge hit in its native country, Hun Jang's epic doesn't lack for spectacle or incident: In addition to its war-what-is-it-good-for? moralizing, it also piles on bloody battle scenes, subplots involving a sniper and a supply chest, and a nihilistic last-minute twist. What you don't get is the sense that this pumped-up combat-fatigue chronicle is pandering-or, for that matter, particularly original. Full Review

Tightly directed and well acted (even though many characters are cut-outs from every war movie you've ever seen), The Front Line shoehorns little known history into a familiar format, and it works. Full Review

Jang and screenwriter Park Sang-yeon recognize the situation's senselessness but can't resist ramping up the melodrama and celebrating the heroism of the battle-fatigued soldiers. These contradictory impulses, combined with the film's undercooked characters, make The Front Line a war movie not quite worth engaging. Full Review

While its tone and humanity offset the futility of each side's need for one crucial hill, much of this intense, honorable film is too drawn-out. Full Review