The Front Line

1953, the last months of the Korean War. The armistice talks are going on and the line has not been fixed; whoever holds which hill when the agreement is signed will keep it. So a position called Aerok Hill changes hands over and over. Lieutenant Kang is sent to investigate: the unit commander was killed by a bullet from his own weapon. There he finds an old friend and sees what the unit has become. Jang Hoon directs, from a screenplay by Park Sang-yeon. The subject is not the futility of war but the duration itself. Dying while the talks continue is the matter at the centre; every assault is made for a paper about to be signed. Aerok Hill is an invented name and the situation is real; the losses taken for hills in the final weeks before the armistice are among the heaviest passages of the Korean War. The strange relationship between the two sides is the film's best idea: letters left in the trench, hidden drink, objects that come from the other side; the soldiers know each other. The narrative builds no heroism. The nationalist register common in mainstream Korean war films is absent and the film holds both sides in the same place. It did well commercially in South Korea and was the country's Oscar submission that year. Who it is for: viewers who like war films and work about the Korean War. Who it is not for: there are many characters, the battle scenes repeat, and it runs long.