Assigned to investigate a possible fragging incident as the Korean War winds down, a CIC officer (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance's Shin) joins a South Korean platoon to get to the bottom of things. He quickly finds himself defending a small but strategic hill alongside the troops---as well as discovering that the company's captain, his old army buddy Kim (Ko), has started to go a little Kurtz-ishly crazy. A huge hit in its native country, Hun Jang's epic doesn't lack for spectacle or incident: In addition to its war-what-is-it-good-for? moralizing, it also piles on bloody battle scenes, subplots involving a sniper and a supply chest, and a nihilistic last-minute twist. What you don't get is the sense that this pumped-up combat-fatigue chronicle is pandering---or, for that matter, particularly original.
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