Humanistic Behavior during the War

The movie “The Marines Who Never Return” is the first movie we saw that dealt with the Korean War. I expected the movie to be somber and bleak, but the director managed to introduce some great comical moments. The movie deals with a sensitive topic, and as David Scott Diffrient mentioned in his article, the director Yi Man-hui had a more” humanistic approach to the Korean War movie”. He didn’t create a gloomy set in which he portrayed the hardships through which the soldiers went through, and he also didn’t show the soldiers as tools to winning the war. Often, war movies show that soldiers must die and sacrifice for the greater good. However, Man-hui showed the soldiers as individuals, each capable of pro-social behavior. For example, they all try to save a young girl who is left orphan as a result of the war. Or even in the beginning of the movie we see the helmet of a soldier being pierced by a bullet, and a lower rank soldier decides to switch his own helmet with the broken one, so that the higher rank soldier can have a better helmet. Those good relationships between the characters are even more strengthened by the comical scenes, which make the audience feel more comfortable and probably closer to the soldiers.

Another scene that I felt was important was when the soldiers were denied service at the bar. Initially I felt bad for them because they were risking their lives for the Korean people and at the same time no one was recognizing that; even more they were rejected just because of that (or rather because they were not foreigners). But later I liked how they acted and I felt that what they did was probably the best they could have done. The bar staff is representing the Koreans or rather the people (in general) that give up their pride (including maybe patriotism) just because they have a chance to gain wealth. For them it didn’t matter that their country was divided and in turmoil as time as they can gain something out of it. This is emphasized by how the soldier asks: “As long as we pay it’s okay?” The destruction the soldiers did was paid for so the staff realized that having money is not always worth it if your “home” is no longer there for you. The soldiers showed that dividing the country like this is not really worth it, and that sticking together makes more sense especially during the war.