Korean Movie Review: Welcome to Dongmakgol (웰컴 투 동막골)

At the height of the Korean War,  a pair of South Korean Army soldiers and three North Korean Army soldiers stumble upon a remote village in the mountains.  The village is so remote that the people are still living in the 19th century and know nothing of the 'modern' world or the war that is raging in the rest of Korea.  There's a random American pilot who's also crash landed in the area too thrown in for good measure. 

not very subtle! the villagers are literally caught between the two sides... if only they actually knew what grenades or rifles were.

As you can guess 'Welcome to Dongmakgol' (웰컴 투 동막골) is one of those ' Sunshine policy' movies that have a pro-reunification subtext...   Eventually the soldiers from both sides forget about politics and war and work together to save the villagers and their simple way of life.  (this is actually very,very similar to the Korean movie I reviewed a few weeks back, ' Heaven's Soldiers', in which North and South soldiers from the present are thrown back in time to the 16th Century and have to help a historic Korean admiral reach his destined path).

Anyway, 'Welcome to Dongmakgol' sounds like it could be a decent story, right?  I might have liked it except for the fact that the main antagonists thrown in at the end are the US and South Korean armies (who apparently are all inherently evil). If I didn't know better, I'd almost think this movie was bankrolled by Kim Jong-Il. :-P

can't we all just get along?

Actually I didn't only dislike that part,  I thought the pacing and character development were pretty flawed.  They take a very good premise and then waste a lot of time before finally figuring out where to go with the story.    I give it a 4/10.