ReviewThe Battle of Jangsari film review: Korean war drama starring Megan Fox is disposable and formulaic
- Megan Fox fails to lift this by-the-numbers film that plays out every war movie cliché
- The soldiers’ characters are also one-dimensional and feel more like caricatures
2/5 stars
Following the events of Operation Chromite, the 2016 film most notable for starring Liam Neeson as General Douglas MacArthur, The Battle of Jangsari is the second instalment in a planned trilogy of Korean war epics from Taewon Entertainment.
This time, Megan Fox is drafted in to add a questionable degree of Hollywood glamour, portraying a fictional amalgam of celebrated American war correspondents Marguerite Higgins and Margaret Bourke-White.
For the most part, the film focuses on the student soldiers sent in ahead of 1950s pivotal Incheon Landing Operation, to attack neighbouring Jangsari Beach, and cut off the North Korean Army’s supply chain.
Effectively a suicide mission, the Battle of Jangsari saw close to 800 young men, mostly teenagers with less than two weeks military training, tossed into combat without suitable equipment, sufficient provisions or ammunition.
Under the leadership of world-weary veterans Commander Lee (Kim Myung-min) and Sergeant Chan-nyun (Kwak Si-yang), the idealistic youngsters include Sung-pil (Choi Min-ho from the K-pop group SHINee), a student from the North who defected after his family is massacred, and Ha-ryun (Kim Sung-cheol), whose arrogance soon gives way to fear, and ultimately resolve.