Welcome to Dongmakgol

                Welcome to Dongmakgol (2005) is a far more humorous and abstract perspective on the Korean War than The Marines who Never Returned or Taegugki: The Brotherhood of War. However, does it make it any less effective in showing the effects and implications of the war? I agree with Jake Bevan in his article, “Welcome to Panmunjeom: encounters with the north in contemporary South Korean cinema,” that Welcome to Dongmakgol is in fact more successful than some other war films, such as Taegugki: The Brotherhood of War. This is because Welcome to Dongmakgol presents an alternative to just North and South. In Taegugki, both sides were shown in a negative light. You ended up not really wanting to be either. However, in Dongmakgol there is the village of Dongmakgol, where everyone strives to be like children—carefree and without prejudice. Not only do we see the happiness of people unaffected by war, which Taegugki showed and The Marines who Never Returned did not, but we see the ability for North and South Korean soldiers who initially wanted to kill each other being able to return to that state of harmony. Not only that, but we can see the difficulties they first encounter—trying to cover up their disgust of each other when they first agree to help the villagers, which only ended in them goading each other until they fought. And then we see them able to move past it. I would have to say though, it is not in the unrealistic scene with them killing the boar that they become friends, but in the ensuing scene of all the soldiers, including the American, sneaking off to eat the boar. I think that’s when they realize how similar they all are because they all had the exact idea to do something that they should not, and it was that recognition of the fact that they are all just people who are sometimes mischievous and other things other than evil, that allows them to overcome their differences. And seeing that capacity of unity between North and South Koreans, if even on film, is a lot more promising than seeing the violent effects that one already lives in.