Silmido

In 1968 a team from North Korea infiltrates Seoul and tries to kill the president. The attempt fails. South Korea forms a team of its own in reply. Thirty one men are chosen, sentenced to death or with nothing to lose. They are taken to a deserted island called Silmido. The training is extremely harsh; there are sections that end in death and nobody can contact the outside. The purpose is plain: they will go north and kill the leader. Then the politics change. The two countries begin talks and the mission is cancelled. The unit on the island is forgotten. Kang Woo-suk directs. Sul Kyung-gu, Ahn Sung-ki, Huh Joon-ho and Jung Jae-young are in the cast. It is a Korean production. It was the first production in Korea to sell ten million tickets, and that figure became a measure afterwards. The narrative rests on real events; Unit 684 was not officially acknowledged for a long time and the documents were opened years later. In 1971 the unit left the island and moved toward Seoul; the incident ended in violence. The matter it treats is a state denying what it set up itself; the film says so directly. The narrative also shows the relation between the instructors and the prisoners and places both inside the same order. After the film's release an official inquiry into the incident came back onto the agenda. Its limit is structure; it runs long, there are many characters, and the last section slides into melodrama. Who it is for: viewers who like Korean cinema and historical war drama. Who it is not for: the violence is explicit, it runs long, and the ending merciless.