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'The Front Line' Likes It Long And Bloody

Film Rundown:

Genre:

Drama

Parental Rating:

NC-17

Director:

Hun Jang

Starring:

Ha-kyun Shin, Soo Go and Seung-su Ryu

Runtime:

133

Our rating:

by The Ology Team .

On Jan 23, 2012

This will inevitably sound jaded and cynical, but The Front Line strikes me as more or less your standard war movie. It certainly contains an awful lot of slow motion soldier deaths coupled with inconsolable comrades screaming NOOOOOOOOOOO, their arms helplessly outstretched. It certainly contains a lot of orchestral music cues that I can't classify as anything other than "cheese-ball." And it certainly drags on for long enough -- a meaty 133 minutes. Yup, I sound pretty pretentious, don't I?

This melodramatic foreign production centers on the Korean War's final battle, the one that will determine the border between north and south. We are introduced to several soldiers, each of whom will, at one point or another, engage in either mutiny, treason or murder. Rules of engagement are lax at the front line. The bullets rarely stop flying, the tears rarely stop falling. Time and time again, the men are told the end is in sight, only to have it pushed ever further into the future. They tire of combat. So do we.

Perhaps something was lost in translation, but I somewhat doubt it. Cliched stabs at profundity stick out like sore thumbs, like the moment when opposing forces find they have something in common, or the part where one battle-hardened man gives another permission to cry. Thanks, but I'm good, bro. Despite some impressively staged battles and moderately moving moments, The Font Line fails to engage.

SumOlogy: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

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