55.) Operation Chromite [8/19/2016]

On a spectrum of movies which try to re-frame discussions of famous moments in history, Operation Chromite--the Korean-made movie with actors speaking in English, Korean, and Russian, and subtitles in both English and Korean--falls somewhere between the very good Anthropoid and the quite terrible Stalingrad (which, I think, is still available on YouTube in it's entirety for free, if you have three hours to blow on a terrible movie).

Blessedly, it was a movie made by Koreans, so the Korean actors really got to shine, and Liam Neeson, playing a guy giving his best impersonation of Liam Neeson playing Douglas MacArthur, phoned in a performance which, at best, was an amalgamation of all John Wayne's characters. Still, since Saving Private Ryan, which did not shy from the gritty realism of war, I have troubles getting into films where a heroic character is shot multiple times and doesn't just crumple into a ball. Like a lot of war films from the 50s and 60s, this was clearly an attempt to valorize a national symbol of heroism, and the characters on which the movie was based deserve some respect for essentially allowing the UN forces to gain a foothold in Korea. That said, what they did was heroic enough. Their actions didn't need to emphasized by an overly dramatic score and prolonged highly-emotive scenes (complete with a teary-eyed goodbye scene to one of the soldier's babies, in which the soldier confidently ensured he would be back after the fighting, before he went off and died).

In the end, there isn't enough out there about the Korean resistance in American history, so that was nice to see. Also, the white guy didn't come in an save a bunch of inept indigenous people, bring his superior intellect and firepower to save the day. Instead, MacArthur needed to wait until the Koreans provided the opportunity for the UN forces to make landfall. The decision to film each character speaking in their native language was a nice touch, instead of having everyone speak in some accented English. Again, it was much better than Stalingrad, but still a far-cry from some of the better war movies out there.