White Badge
DVD, South Korea
The Players
Sung Ki Ahn
Kyung Young Lee
Hea Jin Sim
Directed by Jiyoung Chung
The Plot
November 7, 1979 – President Park Chung Hee has been assassinated.
Han Kiju is a writer and a Vietnam War veteran living in Seoul. He is a bitter person and is constantly plagued by nightmares of his combat experiences. Now that President Park is dead, he begins to write a book about his Vietnam experience. However, his nightmares return to him when an old war buddy, Pfc. Byon begins to visit him. What do they feel guilty about? What really happened in Vietnam?
The Review
Though the movie wasn’t so hot, I was still glad to see a piece of film that chronicled the South Korean soldier’s involvement in the Vietnam War. White Badge was okay; and I feel it could have been much better. The only flaws I found in it were bad editing and a bad adaptation from the novel. This is another example of a movie killing a critically acclaimed novel.
The film was obviously low budget, but the cinematography wasn’t bad and the production teams really made do. I think that the biggest pieces of the budget went to paying the actors and making special effects (explosions) for the combat scenes. Despite the flaws in the editing and the script, the performances given by the actors were solid and well carried out. When I saw the actors’ facial expressions, I believed that they were war veterans. When I saw the women’s performances, I believed that they were the girlfriends of soldiers with emotional pain of their own.
Even though the movie was mediocre in some ways, I’m glad I saw it, and I would rather have spent the money on the DVD than to have not seen the movie at all. I did enjoy all of the accuracies, such as realistic combat scenes, the frequent use of helicopters, interaction between ROK and US troops, day-to-day Army life in South Vietnam, the effects of post traumatic stress disorder, etc. It was also refreshing to get a foreign perspective of the Vietnam War, and how that perspective is generally the same as the American veteran’s perspective of Vietnam.
If you consider yourself a movie aficionado or have a picky taste in movies, I don’t recommend White Badge for you. However, if you have an open mind, or you take an interest in learning about the Vietnam War, you might appreciate this film.
Technical Review
There are two versions of this movie out on DVD, and I have yet to hear of a VCD version. One cover shows Sergeant Han with his helmet off, with smoke and helicopters flying in the background. This version is the one I own, which shows the movie in 1:85:1 widescreen. The only extras on this DVD are a scene selection and cast filmographies (in Korean). What disappointed me is that the English subtitles are part of the video, so they aren’t interactive.
The other cover shows Sergeant Han with his helmet on and explosions in the background. This version is the 4:3 full screen version. Both versions are licensed by Vanguard Cinema, so I suspect the extras and subtitles are the same in both DVD’s.
White Badge is 122 minutes long and is not rated in the U.S. The film contains graphic war violence, language, and sexual content.
Attachment: White_Badge_movie_poster.jpg (Downloaded 3 times)
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