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Best D-day war movie... Ever! "My Way" (a Korean film)


jgawne
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My Way, “Inspired by a true story” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606384

 

free on netflix.

 

 

From what I gather this is a Korean film shot in Latvia. Let’s see if you can follow the plot. It follows to kids in Japanese occupied Korean (pre war) one Japanese- one Korean. Korean family is poor, Japanese family is rich. Kids do not get along as they are marathon rivals. Japanese kid becomes colonel in Japanese Army, Koran lowly private in his unit. They fight the Russians in Manchuria (some really fun suicide missions blowing up tanks here), but are captured and sent to Siberian POW work Camp.

 

 

Germany invades Russia and they get drafted as privates (remember, one was a colonel of the Japanese army). The fight a mad charge against German machine guns (taken almost verbatim from “Enemy at the Gates,” and somehow they desert and are found by the Germans. So they get drafted by the Germans into an Ost Battalion. Where are they sent to work? You got it- Normandy. Omaha Beach to be exact.

 

 

Now comes what has to be the greatest, most amazing and spectacular D-Day scene EVER!!!!!

 

(note: five exclamation points rating).

 

A fighter crashes into their trench following them running down it towards the camera and they are narrowly missed by the wreckage. Explosions!! Bombers (Memphis Belle). Massive Allied fleet. GI’s run in in landing craft (SPR), and we find out two friends held at gunpoint by an evil Nazi officer to fire machine guns at the Americans. Americans land and fire Ranger style grappling hooks to climb up to the concrete bunker (no cliff here, just a beach with a ridge of sand behind it). They seem to not see the tourist wooden stairway going to the top of the sand dune. More big explosions and the two guys escape their bunker and run away across a field. 16” Naval guns pound around them, with explosions like small hand grenades.

 

 

Even though it is daylight, paratroopers start landing, and surround the two guys in a circle. Sadly, the Korean is wounded (in the heart) so he gives his dog tag to the Japanese guy saying if the Americans find out he is a Japanese they will kill him. Korean Dies, Japanese cries, and we see later on the Japanese guy has assumed the Koreans identity and WINS the Olympic marathon in his name. Hooray! War is Bad! Human spirit triumphs over badness.

 

 

Now, what is really weird is that most of the props and uniforms and CGI are really pretty good. It’s the story that makes it a near laughable film. I admit I enjoyed the first half pretty much, but then when they join the German army all credibility goes away and it was more astonishment that someone actually wrote this, and more so that they actually made it. Even more so that have the balls to say it is “Inspired by a true story.”

 

 

Seriously, the ending D-day sequence is pretty hysterical to watch as it is a combination of decent uniforms and equipment, but horrendous plot. As if someone looked at the pictures in books but was unable to read the text. That and they bought any CGI items that had already been programmed. In fact for a while I wondered if they had just purchased clips from other war films to use. I can only assume the "inspired by" means "Inspired by all the WW2 war films the author went to see and realized made lots of money."

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I just caught this from Netflix last week. I did a lot of fast forwarding through it.

My take on this film is that it was very similar to the film, "Brotherhood of war" where another Korean changes sides in the middle of the Korean war. This film seemed to take that premise to an almost "Forrest Gump" direction. I almost expected the main character to personally cap Hitler in the bunker, be standing on the Mighty Mo when the surreder was signed and other such zaniness.

That said, the battle scenes were engaging, especially the ones in China. It is worth watching but you have to leave your sense of historical reality at the door. In fact, leave it across town!

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Pure hookum...especially that air raid knocking out the bunkers!! :lol: In reality, most of the bombs dropped fell several miles inland! Still, I suppose it's "entertainment"....of sorts? :o

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I wonder if the "true story" was the couple of sentences in Band of Brothers that addressed some possible slave laborers that may have been Eastern Russians that looked Asian enough to draw out suspicions of Japanese soldiers fighting for the Nazis..

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On this is is true that the Germans had very large numbers of Tartars, Mongols and other Asiatic looking personel in Normandy, these were members of the Ost Battalions, In Normandy the few Koreans and other Far East Orientals are believed to have been in Ost Battalion 43, some of them but not all of them captured or having surrenderd to the Germans on the Eastern Front. The Red Army had loads of differant races from Siberia, Indians if you can believe that are identical in appearance to the Indians of Alaska, Yupik mostly, they are know as Siberian Yupik. In the most southern part Russia's Maritime Province, one will find ethinc Koreans, these people the their numbers are small 1% in 2010, more I think in the years of the Communist regime, were Soviet citizens or now if you like Russian Federation citizens, without a doubt these Koreans were taken in to the Red Army.

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I wonder if the "true story" was the couple of sentences in Band of Brothers that addressed some possible slave laborers that may have been Eastern Russians that looked Asian enough to draw out suspicions of Japanese soldiers fighting for the Nazis..

 

 

 

post-70-1276982002.jpg

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I seriously doubt he was japanese. They called most asians japs, but I bet someone that knows asian races would take a look at him and say " he's manchurian " or whatever. I have never, ever heard of a really documented case of a REAL japanese soldier in a combat unit in France.

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history-buff1944

This was a very well made movie. Now whether or not it was factual? I dont know but--I do know it is worthy to eb in anyones DvD collection. WalMart in my area had-or had some for sale recently.

 

The soldier in question above-is Korean.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, apparently it is based on a true story. The following newspaper article contains the story of Yang Kyoungjong, an 18-year old Korean, who served in three armies during the Second World War. It's written by British historian Antony Beevor in the June 2nd, 2012, edition of London's Daily Mail. The article contains numerous personal stories of participants of the War. WARNING: Some of the stories in the article are graphic.

 

http://www.dailymail...ption-ever.html

 

The photograph of the supposed Japanese soldier in a German uniform in UPNATM's post is, in fact, a photograph of Yang.

 

After finishing the war in a prisoner of war camp in Britain, Yang went to the US. He died in Illinois in 1992.

 

Cheers,

Dan.

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I watched it on Netflix a month or so ago. It was better than I though it was going to be. Some of the battle scenes, expecially the earlier ones against the Russians, were pretty brutal. It lost some points at the end when the Airborne dropped in right behind the beach during the initial landings. I would guess it is very loosely based on a true story or a combination of a few.

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But did Yang win the Olympics? or was he even a marathon runner? and did he go through the war with a Japanese officer friend?

 

At what point is the story of one man serving in three armies different enough from one marathon running man serving in three amries with his Japanese friend and then taking his identiy and winning the olympics? I say that is really pretty much a stretch. One might as well say it is based upon real events- the real even being there was a WW2 and a lot of men fought in it. If it had been two koreans that just like running and stayed togetehr OK, but the extra baggage on this pushed if far from being a true story.

 

sorry- maybe I would buy "slightly inspired by" a true story. certainly not "based on."

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sorry- maybe I would buy "slightly inspired by" a true story. certainly not "based on."

 

I take your point entirely. Having not seen the film My Way I'll have to defer to those who have.

 

It's much like Saving Private Ryan. It's 'inspired' by a true story but not 'based on' one.

 

Cheers,

Dan.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Entertaining to a degree, the battle scenes special effects were done very well for the most part. But as far as a sappy sub plot - this one takes the cake and crams more cliques into its running length, more than any other war movie ever filmed (or at least that I've watched) - had a silly feel to the interrelations of the main characters as their inhumanity is exposed or they find redemption to some degree...

 

Worth watching...yes, but uncomfortable in parts due to extreme sappiness of its clichés.

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Entertaining to a degree, the battle scenes special effects were done very well for the most part. But as far as a sappy sub plot - this one takes the cake and crams more cliques into its running length, more than any other war movie ever filmed (or at least that I've watched) - had a silly feel to the interrelations of the main characters as their inhumanity is exposed or they find redemption to some degree...

 

Worth watching...yes, but uncomfortable in parts due to extreme sappiness of its clichés.

 

 

You're A Sap Mr Japanese :P

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  • 1 month later...
SergeantMajorGray

I think this movie was great until it got to the German part. But here in my opinion is the biggest screw up right at the begining literally BEFORE the movie starts it says this an Asian man wearing a German uniform was discoverd by the U.S military at Normandy on the D-Day 1945. What 45! Well I guess we've been wrong all this time. Go see for yourself it's still on Netflix it will take just a few seconds.

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Tasken_Lander

Just finished watching this for the first time. Sure, they took a lot of liberties with certain accounts of history and it was super thick on the melodrama, but I thought, as a MOVIE, it was an excellent action/drama/sports/friendship/war story!

 

Excellent cast and acting and directing.

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