I am a military history journalist and I first heard about this movie when I researched an article about soldiers who fought in multiple armies during WW2. (There were a couple of them.) The true story of Kim was very exciting so I wondered how they made it into a movie. Badly! Another stupid romantic flick which turns an interesting piece of history upside down and retains nothing of the original.
The real Kim's name was Yang Kyun-jong. He was no Olympic runner, just a regular 19 year old Korean guy who got drafted into the Japanese army. Not because the Japs were so cruel but that was the custom of the time. Sure, serving in the Imperial Japanese Army wasn't a walk in the park. He was taken prisoner by Soviet forces in the Battle of Khalkin-Gol in 1938 and lived in a Siberian POW camp for years, just like in the movie. There he volunteered into the Soviet army. He fell into German captivity during - most likely - the Battle of Kharkov in 1943. After having joined the SS Eastern Legion - and not the Wehrmacht, as in the movie - with several more Russian POWs he was transferred to Normandy just before D-Day. He survived the invasion and surrendered to the Americans. He was released from a POW camp in Britain in 1946, moved to America and actually never talked about his story, not even to his family. He died in 1992. His exodus was only uncovered in 2002 when a South Korean journalist found photos in an US war archive about SS soldiers of Korean nationality being registered as POWs in Normandy.
Now for the movie. It's simply one of the most annoying war movies I've ever seen. The true story was seemingly not exciting enough for the filmmakers so they turned it into a cheesy romantic flick. The main hero has three traits: he loves to run, he can take an incredible amount of beating (and takes every opportunity to have his stupid face bashed) and for some reason he tries to save everyone from damnation. Probably God likes it and this is why he's always saved in the very last moment before being shot, stabbed, burnt or something similar.
The character itself is outright unrealistic. Nobody stayed an innocent angel in Soviet work camps. I met a lot of old people who spent years there. A misfit like Kim would've been fed to the crows in a week. Also, nobody risked their lives for others in the Gulag camps. People simply tried to keep a low profile and shut up. They were barely living. Yet Kim (and all others) somehow manage to keep themselves well-fed and healthy.
The battle scenes are simply ridiculous. Yes, they look nice with many swishy-swoshy special effects, a lot of fake blood and clichés diligently copied in every war movie since Saving Private Ryan. But come on... The battle of Khalkin-Gol was not fought in strictly tight formations. (No battles were.) The Soviets indeed used T-26 tanks like in the movie, but they weren't idiots to send them against the Japanese in a parade formation with no infantry. Fortunately the Japs in this movie are even bigger idiots and march in even tighter formations, with only rifles and swords. Their luck is that the Russians still try to top their idiocy and all their tankers stand in the turret under all circumstances, with the hatch open. Oh bull!
Then comes a very long dragging part about the Soviet POW camp with very predictable "twists", and suddenly our hero is a Russian soldier, finding himself the _exact copy_ of the opening scene of Enemy at the Gates! For some reason the Germans, after devastating an entire Russian city, have built a hedgehog position in the middle of it, decorating a building with neat parade flags just in case the Russians can't find them. Now say, why on earth would a German unit entrench itself in a Russian city in 1941? Particularly when facing only ragtag Soviet infantry with barely enough rifles while they have tanks and heavy weapons? Oh bull again!
But our heroes survive again without a scratch, and that's heroic indeed not only because the battering they receive but also the ever-repeating heroic music which gets quite annoying by the time. Probably they can't hear it over the battle noise - good for them. Yes, yes, we also know John Williams, but we don't care how some Korean band can mimic his style. Please stop. Or die. Whatever.
Would you believe that soon comes an exact copy of the D-Day scene from Saving Private Ryan? Well, actually the only merit to this movie is that it shows how it wasn't exactly a birthday party for the Germans either. Otherwise the entire scene is just as ridiculous as earlier ones. Vastly overdone CGI don't compensate for the lack of realism (just how many bullets can our hero dodge?) and neither for historic inaccuracy. (Paratroopers jumping during the Omaha Beach landing, really? Hasn't it happened a day before? And why do they land just about a hundred meters from the battle after it was already won? Why would they use paras for that?)
Spoiler warning! Here comes the worst. So our heroes somehow survive the entire ordeal (good thing the battleship Iowa is only pounding the beach with very small grenades and the bombs falling from the B-17s are also really undersized) and run away... until our Korean hero finally somehow gets mortally wounded. What happens next? He gives the dog tag to the Japanese guy and tells him to become him so he Americans won't kill him. SERIOUSLY?! So the filmmakers allege that Yang Kyung-jong, who actually survived D-Day, was an impostor and in fact a Japanese colonel (and war criminal)? My, I hope his family never watched this. This feels like they spat on his grave.
The real Kim's name was Yang Kyun-jong. He was no Olympic runner, just a regular 19 year old Korean guy who got drafted into the Japanese army. Not because the Japs were so cruel but that was the custom of the time. Sure, serving in the Imperial Japanese Army wasn't a walk in the park. He was taken prisoner by Soviet forces in the Battle of Khalkin-Gol in 1938 and lived in a Siberian POW camp for years, just like in the movie. There he volunteered into the Soviet army. He fell into German captivity during - most likely - the Battle of Kharkov in 1943. After having joined the SS Eastern Legion - and not the Wehrmacht, as in the movie - with several more Russian POWs he was transferred to Normandy just before D-Day. He survived the invasion and surrendered to the Americans. He was released from a POW camp in Britain in 1946, moved to America and actually never talked about his story, not even to his family. He died in 1992. His exodus was only uncovered in 2002 when a South Korean journalist found photos in an US war archive about SS soldiers of Korean nationality being registered as POWs in Normandy.
Now for the movie. It's simply one of the most annoying war movies I've ever seen. The true story was seemingly not exciting enough for the filmmakers so they turned it into a cheesy romantic flick. The main hero has three traits: he loves to run, he can take an incredible amount of beating (and takes every opportunity to have his stupid face bashed) and for some reason he tries to save everyone from damnation. Probably God likes it and this is why he's always saved in the very last moment before being shot, stabbed, burnt or something similar.
The character itself is outright unrealistic. Nobody stayed an innocent angel in Soviet work camps. I met a lot of old people who spent years there. A misfit like Kim would've been fed to the crows in a week. Also, nobody risked their lives for others in the Gulag camps. People simply tried to keep a low profile and shut up. They were barely living. Yet Kim (and all others) somehow manage to keep themselves well-fed and healthy.
The battle scenes are simply ridiculous. Yes, they look nice with many swishy-swoshy special effects, a lot of fake blood and clichés diligently copied in every war movie since Saving Private Ryan. But come on... The battle of Khalkin-Gol was not fought in strictly tight formations. (No battles were.) The Soviets indeed used T-26 tanks like in the movie, but they weren't idiots to send them against the Japanese in a parade formation with no infantry. Fortunately the Japs in this movie are even bigger idiots and march in even tighter formations, with only rifles and swords. Their luck is that the Russians still try to top their idiocy and all their tankers stand in the turret under all circumstances, with the hatch open. Oh bull!
Then comes a very long dragging part about the Soviet POW camp with very predictable "twists", and suddenly our hero is a Russian soldier, finding himself the _exact copy_ of the opening scene of Enemy at the Gates! For some reason the Germans, after devastating an entire Russian city, have built a hedgehog position in the middle of it, decorating a building with neat parade flags just in case the Russians can't find them. Now say, why on earth would a German unit entrench itself in a Russian city in 1941? Particularly when facing only ragtag Soviet infantry with barely enough rifles while they have tanks and heavy weapons? Oh bull again!
But our heroes survive again without a scratch, and that's heroic indeed not only because the battering they receive but also the ever-repeating heroic music which gets quite annoying by the time. Probably they can't hear it over the battle noise - good for them. Yes, yes, we also know John Williams, but we don't care how some Korean band can mimic his style. Please stop. Or die. Whatever.
Would you believe that soon comes an exact copy of the D-Day scene from Saving Private Ryan? Well, actually the only merit to this movie is that it shows how it wasn't exactly a birthday party for the Germans either. Otherwise the entire scene is just as ridiculous as earlier ones. Vastly overdone CGI don't compensate for the lack of realism (just how many bullets can our hero dodge?) and neither for historic inaccuracy. (Paratroopers jumping during the Omaha Beach landing, really? Hasn't it happened a day before? And why do they land just about a hundred meters from the battle after it was already won? Why would they use paras for that?)
Spoiler warning! Here comes the worst. So our heroes somehow survive the entire ordeal (good thing the battleship Iowa is only pounding the beach with very small grenades and the bombs falling from the B-17s are also really undersized) and run away... until our Korean hero finally somehow gets mortally wounded. What happens next? He gives the dog tag to the Japanese guy and tells him to become him so he Americans won't kill him. SERIOUSLY?! So the filmmakers allege that Yang Kyung-jong, who actually survived D-Day, was an impostor and in fact a Japanese colonel (and war criminal)? My, I hope his family never watched this. This feels like they spat on his grave.