가자 포화 속으로

this past wednesday marked the theatrical release of the highly anticipated korean film, 포화 속으호 [71: Into the Fire]. i discovered that it was showing in seoul with english subs, so of course i had to see it since it is about the korean war and stars T.O.P [both of which i am interested in].

released in time to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the korean war, this is probably one of the saddest movies i have ever seen. i pretty much spent the entire 2-hour run-time in tears.

the movie was based on the true story of 71 student soldiers who were left to defend pohang girls' middle school [august 1950], which wasn't supposed to be an important battle site. however, they were attacked by the north, and were severely outnumbered. somehow, they managed to defend their position for 11 hours, and actually played a pretty important role in allowing the south and her allies to defend the nakdong river [keeping the north from taking over busan].

i've been researching this ever since i saw the movie, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much english information available.

the movie was based on letters written by 오장범 [oh jang-bum], played by T.O.P. jang-bum, leader of the student soldiers, wrote a series of letters to his mother, which were discovered after his death. [not gonna lie, the letter-writing part was one of the saddests parts of the movie, for me at least.]

oh my gosh, there's so much more i could say about this movie, because it really was an excellent film [and that had nothing to do with T.O.P being in it!] i had expected it to be good, since it received a lot of hype and got really good reviews, but i have to say that it exceeded my expectations. and T.O.P is actually a legitimately good actor [and yes, i would still think that even if i didn't plan on marrying him].

sigh. even the trailer makes me want to cry.