The Marines Who Never Returned

The Marines Who Never Returned is a Korean War film produced by Lee ManHee in 1963. This film contents the story of the marines try to survive in the War with the Chinese army during the Korean War. “The Marines Who never return not only gestures ahead to the future but returns to the visual tropes and trench iconography of World War II films, conjured in its opening minutes as thousands of marines spill out onto the barbed-wire beach at Incheon in a scene that recalls numerous landing at Omaha beach” (Scott, 42). Since the film was filmed ten years after the Korean War, it contains more realistic scenes. The film contains the heavy atmosphere, however, there were some comedic scenes in the film. In the film, Goo Bongseo was the most humorous solider who gives entertains to the other soldiers. Even though the film contains the heavy atmosphere, audience could watch the film not only as a heavy War film but also as comedic scenes since he played the humorous role in the film. As mentioned in the reading, “realism still retains its theoretical significance in its rejection of the trivialization of literature that occurs when it becomes alienated from society” (Park, 187). I was surprised about the fact that the film has attracted a domestic audience of 230,000 and won numerous honors at the third Annual rand Bell Awards (Park, 28). Since the title of the film foreshadowing not happy-ending story, personally thought there would had been many audiences watching the film, which would remind them of those days (War times). “Although the military enlightenment or anticommunist film was a fixture in the resumes of many South Korean filmmakers during this politically repressive yet textually playful era, few practitioners brought the same degree of nuance and explosive poetics to stories about heroic soldiers and brave pilots as did Lee Man hee” (Park, 23). The most pitiful scene of this film was the scene when YongHee lost her mom and followed the soldiers. This scene portrays that there were many orphans of the Korean War who lost their family on their way to evacuate. However, YongHee shows the positive characteristics in the film, which makes audience to feel more pitiful of her.