Lee Man-hee's Humanistic Approach

I liked what Tudor said about how towards the end of the film The Marines Who Never Returned Home, it was no longer the fighting for their nation that mattered but for the team/squadron to stick together through thick and thin. And I liked the observation Sybill made on how the film exercises “a soft psychological manipulation through media and emotional appeal”. My thoughts were aligned with this statement when I was trying to piece together the strong presence of a girl in the care and protection of the marines and the theme of war that pervaded all the montages. Why did the director choose to have a little girl as a major constituent? I jotted down in my notes that it had to do with adding an emotional side to the film, to show that the men had a compassionate attitude and were not men who always thought of violence. Indeed, this essential quality was a sort of trademark of this director, Lee Man-hee. Diffrient puts this quality in more thematic terms: “[Lee] stands out among his peers for his humanistic approach to the Korean War movie, a genre commonly perceived to be a propagandistic vehicle for extolling the virtues of the political status quo” (23).

For those who aren’t too keen on old movies, the black-and-white nature of this film can be quite an upsetting feature. But this film should not be overlooked as there are only a handful of films out there that show Korean soldiers who do not fit into the Korean caricatures molded by Hollywood. Through these male characters, we see not just a “rarefied version of the ROK armed forces” (23) but also a glimpse into the more realistic and humanistic values of Koreans at war (which can be shared with any other group of enlisted men regardless of race). On another note, I wonder if it was the director’s intention to show that each person is capable of doing some good in whatever circumstances they find themselves in.