Recent Viewings - Silmido

Silmido by Woo-suk Kang (2003) Korea Back in 1968, North Korea sent a group of commando to try to assassinate S. Korea's president at the time. They failed but were not that far from the blue house when they got caught! They were known as Unit 124 back in the North. Shortly after, S. Korean government decided to create a similar unit which they called unit 684 to try to go to Pyeongyang and assassinate Kim Il-Sung. Interestingly, unit 684 was comprised only of convicts. They stayed on the island of Silmido for years before the government decided to get rid of them by killing them! Hearing of this, they try to make their way to Seoul to probably take their revenge. They got intercepted and they were killed or sentenced to death. This movie recreates the events surrouding unit 684, their training and their demise. The movie does what it should do pretty well. Training sequences are brutal, music is there to make us feel empathy for the unit, men who are at first annoyed by each other finally bound (they don't really have a choice anyways because they're stuck on this island). It's a politically charged movie although not so much in your face as it could be. Interesting to see how the S. Korean government handled this situation and never gave the green light for the assassination attempt. This movie left me wondering what if they actually went with the mission and succeed. This part of the world would be very different right now..