Film: The Front Line

The war film, "The Front Line" is based during the Korean War. (In Korean, the title is loosely translated to "The Battle of Highland".) It is starred by famous lead and supporting actors of South Korea and it captures the disastrous nature of war and the unfortunate fate between the South and North Korean soldiers at last minute of the Korean War before the Armistice Agreement.

The film begins with one officer named Eun-Pyo, who is transferred to a company with the nickname, "alligator". This company has fought and won many battles, especially in the dispute over one hill called "Aerok" Hill (also known as K-Hill). He is sent to investigate a case, in which a letter of a North Korean solider was sent from the Alligator Company to his mother, who lives in South Korea, and this may be the case that there might be a spy in the company. The plot continues as Eun-Pyo seeks the answer behind this strange incident and his reconciliation with a friend thought to be dead, Soo-Hyuk.

The Aerok Hill is captured repeatedly by both sides and it is an important hill in the negotiation between the two Koreas, as it would bring more lands to the owning side. This causes continuous change in its owner as each side attempts to capture the hill. At the end of the film, the Armistice Agreement is negotiated, but there are gap hours before the agreement becomes official.

The last scenes of the film depict the unfortunate fate of the reluctant soldiers, who have to fight for a land that has been covered by the corpse of their fallen comrades. What is the meaning of this hill to each of the individual soldiers? Yes, it may be important to the officials, when drawing the boundary in the peninsula, but to the soldiers, the hill represents the death and life to these soldiers, because the hill may become their grave or successful capture of the hill would extend their life. I do not think that the hill was looked a territory to them. This is why, few of the soldiers decided to hide and leave their belongings, because in the end they would return to the exact hill. The repeated captures in the end become pointless and meaningless as soldiers would have to die for a hill that they would later lose.

At the very last battle before the agreement becomes official, the soldiers of each side sing together a song to show their reluctant heart to fight. The fight between these two sides shows us a message. We fight today and we have fought in the past. These conflicts were small and big, but it was always the same argument and mostly for the same reason. It is the same hill that is needed to be overcome. It is in some way pointless to fight over. What is the better solution? What is the purpose of having a boundary, when we all live in the same world, when we breath the same air? We are in the frontline of the hill that we must overcome. It no longer talks about a boundary against each other, but a boundary of war that we must overcome to achieve peace.