Welcome To Dongmakgol

The Korean War was said to have started in 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea, but in fact in Cumings book he explains that the Korean War started before 1950 with Guerrilla troops attacking South Korea and also the South provoking North Korea which lead to not only the Ongjin battle, but many others. The film Welcome to Dongmakgol directed by Kwang-Hyun Park was accurate for the most part in depicting what was going on in Korea at the time and how other countries like the United States were involved in the war. In the start of the film the South Korean soldiers entered the peaceful village which the villagers had no idea that there was a war going on. In addition, the villagers were also surprised at the fact that the war was between the North and the South and not against the Japanese or the Chinese. The film was interesting to watch because the director had an interesting way of illustrating the conflict between the North and the South.

In the film there were couple of scenes where the South did provoke the North first. The first was when the two South Korean soldiers were quick to point their weapons toward the North Korean soldiers when they walked into the village of Dongmakgol. The second was when the four soldiers excluding the Chief Comrade woke up from their sleep; the South Korean Lieutenant was quick to grab a weapon while the North Korean Chief Comrade was just conversing with the village chief. Another interesting scene was where the North Korean soldiers and the South Korean soldiers are pointing their weapons at each other, the director used the village people in the center to illustrate the 38th parallel. This leads to my next point about the view on both sides on who started the war