DVD Review: Brotherhood

The world woke up and paid attention to Steven Spielberg’s technically flawless war movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’, here he had the veterans telling that it was the most realistic battle movie ever, but if only it had a heart in amongst that carnage. In the Korean war epic ‘Brotherhood’ we have just that. There have been movies of late that use war as a dramatic canvas for their tale to be told, the romantic ‘A Very Long Engagement’ and the excellent ‘Downfall’ to name but two, but there has not been a war movie in the style of the old epics for quite some time, I guess you could say that ‘Brotherhood’ is a return to this form like ‘Gladiator’ harked back at those of the sword and sandal variety. Director Kang JeGyu claimed some international success with his previous stylish but empty movie ‘Shiri’, a tale of modern day terrorists and the macho cops on their trail. This also had the unification of Korea at its heart but was hampered by style over substance of the slo-mo overkill now associated with John Woo’s US movies to keep its point afloat. ‘Brotherhood’, or ‘Tae Guk Gi’ to give it its original title, does not have that problem, and in it we have a viscerally charged war epic with an emotionally gripping story at its basis. In similar fashion to Spielberg’s epic, we have modern day bookends surrounding the war tale to be told. An aging Jin-soek has a telephone call asking him for information to help identify one of the many bodies being uncovered in a Korean war memorial site dig, this brings up old wounds as the person he is being asked to identify has his name but could be his long lost brother, Jin-tae. Flashback to 1950’s Korea. Two brothers, Jin-tae (Dong-Kun Jang) and delicate Jin-seok (Bin Won), are enjoying what they can of family life. One has dreams of making shoes and marrying his sweetheart Young-shin (played wonderfully by the tragic Eun-ju Lee who sadly died earlier this year), and the other for the joys of going to college. War breaks out and in a twist of fate both brothers are forcibly enlisted into the armed forces of the South Korean Army leaving their sick and aging mother and their younger siblings in the hands of the distraught Young-shin.

As the army faces starvation from the assault from the Red North, so too are the people left behind at home, rummaging as refugees in their own home and finding the only way to get food is to sign up for the Communist Party, the very thing that is at the centre of this civil bloodshed. Jin-soek has a heart problem and his older brother Jin-tae fearing for his health and vows to keep him safe. He finds that there is a way to send him home but the stakes are high. If he is presented with a medal of Honour he can obtain the freedom of his kin but that means he must do his all and more in this bloody time. Jin-soek cannot understand why his brother then volunteers for every mission that comes up and believes his brother to be loosing his grip on reality to the evil of war itself. Violent and graphic in places, this is definitely not for the squeamish, but it is as the title suggests that the story of the brothers who by turns of events face the deaths of those they love and become sworn enemies is given the main focus.  On the extras front, the retail version of this has a dual language format, so you can watch it in its original Korean with English subtitles or in an English dub, there is also an audio commentary from Asian film expert Tom Mes. These options are not available on the rental release as you only get the Korean version with subtitles. There is more from the retail version too, in that this has a very heavy second disc filled to the brim with explosive features. But please put aside several hours of your spare time before you venture into the depths of this.

This is split into four sections: ‘The War Room’, ‘Making History’, ‘Ministry of Propaganda’ and ‘Further Attractions’, the latter speaking clearly of it’s own content. So now on to the remaining three - ‘The War Room’ kicks off with 10 minutes of storyboard comparisons of various scenes in ‘Battle Plans’ to go into the making of segments ‘Special Operations’, ‘Honoured Dispatches’ and ‘Captains Orders’ (featuring an interview with action director Jung Doo-hung), going through these you immediately want to place disc 1 back in and start all over again. They are quite ‘talky’ on the budget and pre-production side of things but it is amazing how a production of this quality can be made for around £7.5 M (approx $12.8 M), featuring a cast of thousands and having to manufacture all the tanks and even the steam train, using CG as little as possible and only to enhance the effects. ‘Making History’, which is the only section with a ‘Play All’ function, shows more of the casting, special effects and story side of things, splitting further into three section with the last, ‘Tears of Fire’, being around the 45 minute mark on its own. In the last of these three main sections, ‘Ministry of Propaganda’, we find another interesting gem. Here we have actual war veterans telling their stories of the War. Remembering what it was like and intercut with archive footage and that of the movie, this is both sad and fascinating. Even if you are one of those folk that find subtitles a turn off and hard going, there is more than enough specticle and heart felt angst here to win you over. 'Brotherhood' is out to own now and available via Amazon and AmazonUK. You can read more about the DVD in our database.