Dongmakgol: Korea's Utopia

Welcome to Dongmakgol is the 2005 film which deviates from the traditional Korean War films that have a strong anti-communist trait. This South Korean film is “away from the rhetoric of the Cold War and is expressing a desire for peaceful reunification” (Bevan 45-46). Furthermore in the film, main characters are trying to save the community of Dongmakgul from destruction by American soldiers and to preserve Korean identity (Bevan 52).

    Set in Korea during the Korean War, North Korean (Rhee, Jang, and Seo) and South Korean soldiers (Pyo and Moon) plus the American soldier (Smith) end up staying in this remote village of Dongmakgol, untouched by division, war, and modernization. Villagers are unaware of the war and its conflicts and also unfamiliar with modern technology and weapons. For example, they think that grenades are potatoes.

     Other than the funny scenes such as when corns (kernels) turn into popcorn and fall down from the sky after one solider blows up the village’s stock of corns, there are moments of serious tension and mistrust. Perhaps in the “longest Mexican standoff” that I have seen in films, both North and South Korean soldiers point guns at each other about to shoot their opponents. This reminds me of the current situation in Korean peninsula where in JSA and DMZ, North and South Korean soldiers stand and stare at each other constantly. However, as time goes by, characters become friends helping villagers in the fields, working together to kill the wild boar that causes trouble in village, and in the end sacrificing their lives to save Dongmakgol.

    The depiction of Dongmakgol is unique in a sense that this village is pure, innocent, and down to earth. Children are playing, adults are helping each other, and everyone is laughing enjoying their lives. This “heaven on earth” place reminds me of Korea that was once the “Hermit Kingdom.” Untouched, untroubled, and untainted by the outside forces, villagers maintain their Korean identity, something that was not lost before the Korean War and the Japanese colonialism, by working and farming in a traditional way and wearing hanbok, traditional Korean clothes. Dongmakgol indeed represents “a Korea where national division never occurred”; “this village nostalgically evokes a past before Korea’s involvement upon the world stage, before occupation, division and war” (Bevan 53). Villagers are living in what I would call “Utopia. ” People are innocent, carefree, cooperative, and willing to sacrifice their lives even for those (North Korean and South Korean soldiers) who are not blood-related and who destroyed their food supplies. Villagers remind me of Native Americans in the New World who were hospitable and generous unlike European colonialists. Can there be more places like Dongmakgol?

Can two Koreas be Dongmakgol?