Best movie of this year hands down!

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The first thing I noticed was the awesome music. The film doesn't waste any time getting to the action. The characters are very likable, making you root for them. This was a very different war film, concentrating more on the relationship between two brothers - being very close prior to war and then having nothing in common once at the war front. Make no mistake, this was brutal, graphic and disturbing. The film so effectively shows how war changes people, as one of the brothers rises from ordinary man to the nation's hero, and how it affects those around him.The Koreans make the best war films by far, and this film is undeniable proof! The battle scenes are incredibly well done and very realistic. The final battle scene is fantastic! This is a very sad film, though, but my goodness, this was good!

The film tells the story of two brothers whose normal life changes when a war breaks out. Lee Jin-Tae is the older brother who runs a shoeshine stand in order to make money for his brother's education. Due to the sudden war between North Korea and South Korea, the two brothers were forcibly dragged into the battlefield. Visually, it's a wonderful war movie. This film has too many characters like all other war movies and it's hard to figure out who is fighting during the war sequences. The two lead actors were excellent in their roles and Like any other Korean movie, the emotional scenes were right on the money. Anyway, the film has high standards of an epic war film and slightly inspired from 'Saving Private Ryan'. Overall, it's a solid movie from the beginning to end and it's a must watch.

This South Korean war movie was internationally distinguished after its popularity made it the most successful Korean film of all time...and it brings with it a reputation of gravitas and emotion that is not entirely without merit. Told in flashback, it's a tale of how two brothers are torn away from their family and forced to join the South Korean army. After engaging in lots of terrible missions, the elder brother becomes desensitised to the violence and turns as brutal as the enemy. When his fiancée is shot and he thinks his brother is killed, he transfers to the North Korean army, and the conclusion is set for an inevitable confrontation between the two siblings, who now fight on different sides.This film is very well made, exquisitely shot and with some very good acting from the cast; the supporting actors and actresses are all good, but the real focus is on the two main brothers, and both are fine. Won Bin has the larger role as the younger brother who grieves over the disappearance of his sibling, but the best performance comes from Jang Dong-Kun, who gets to run the gamut of emotions from A-Z, starting off as a headstrong youth, become a valiant hero, turning embittered and entirely ruthless, and ending up as a crazed, almost possessed evil killing machine.Much of the film is taken up with fighting, and the battles are as realistic and brutal as in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Crystal-clear camera-work throws you into the trenches as earth flies through the air from mortar strikes and bodies are repeatedly torn to pieces by the incoming gunfire. These parts of the movie are visceral and horrifying, recalling such films as BLACK HAWK DOWN; certainly the horror of warfare is brought across. The bodies of massacred villagers are booby-trapped to blow, hands and legs are blown off by mines and bullets, and in some cases, heads literally explode. Certainly the level of blood and guts makes this one of the grisliest war films I've watched.The only real problem with this film is the nature of the narrative, which keeps jumping forward in time, offering visual scenarios of key scenes in the lives of the heroes. As such, the main character's transformation from South Korean hero to North Korean butcher is glossed over, and doesn't come across as believable. Some of the emoting is also a little bit over the top – I'm thinking the train sequence here, as the characters repeatedly cry for their mother. The director would have done well to hold back just a little. Some of the CGI work is also a little bit fake – I could deal with the landscapes, but the CGI aeroplanes are too much. Still, BROTHERHOOD is a great war film, equalling similar US-themed movies and teaching the west about a war that is sometimes forgotten about by those of us living outside of Asia.

A movie definitely much much better than Forest Gump, Saving Private Ryan and all the other common plays. It engraves all types of emotions of human behavior in a time span of 140 minutes. a totally unpredictable climax with more than exceptional acting esp. from Jin Tae... One completely watching this movie would definitely find himself cleaning tears by the end... Just awesome awesome the best... 10/10 All the incidents are so perfectly interlinked that each has a hidden message as the movie passes. The consequences of crucial signing of the Communist registration by the actress to get a handful of barley really brings tears through the climax..