People are voting emotionally.

The first must-see film of the year.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Less than 100 years after the American north and south fought their own civil war, a post-World War II smug America began to stick its nose in everywhere, allegedly fighting communism but pretty much claiming that they were out to protect world peace and prevent a third world war. Controversy concerning both the Korean and Vietnam wars have stirred up film makers in their own anti-war campaigns, and this one, directed by the controversial Samuel Fuller, is one of the best. Its story is simple: a troop of American soldiers hide out in a Buddhist monastery as they are slowly surrounded by North Korean soldiers. Capturing one of them who killed one of the troops, they hold him as a prisoner of war, but when one of them goes ballistic and takes his own means of silencing the enemy.This war drama has political, psychological and spiritual themes, opening with a young Southern Korean boy waking up the troop and guiding them to the monastery. When one of the soldiers comes across a dead American soldier, there are arguments over collecting his dog tags. One soldier, an angry officer hater, sees no point. Once your dead, nobody cares, he claims, and as everybody stares at him in horror, the officer tells the soldier who found the body to collect the dog tags. This is where Samuel Fuller's artistry comes in. He doesn't just get the soldier to claim the dog tags. He has to make a point, and boy, it is a real shocker.The conflict isn't just between the north and south and the north and the Americans. It is between the soldiers, too. A black medic takes care of the communist soldier's wounds and is prodded by him into revealing how he is considered third class by his own nation. The medic, though, is too smart to be manipulated, as is a Japanese/American who was in a detention camp during World War II but still pledges allegiance to the American flag. This film gives a lot of insight to why men fight, why some became mad over fighting, and why some become cowards or withdraw into themselves.An expert cast, lead by Robert Hutton, Steve Brodie and Gene Evans, give outstanding performances which truly do not seem like they are acting. They are gritty, mean, compassionate, loyal, hateful, and it really makes the viewer feel like they are witnessing the inner workings of these men's souls. There's even a soldier who spent World War II as a conscientious objector which brings disgusted shock to the eyes of some of his troop. The film is truly memorable because it doesn't have the big studio ideal of why we fight, but what the consequences to war really is, and that features so many aspects that could never be covered in any movie review.

When viewing The Steel Helmet I had to keep reminding myself that this was made and shown to audiences while the Korean War was actually in its earliest stages. Writer-Director Samuel Fuller smartly depicts the relationship of an American soldier and a Korean boy in a non-stereotypical, yet poignant way. Needless to say, it is devastating when the boy is killed in the line of fire. There are some loose ends in this picture, though, that leave the viewer with unanswered questions. For example, it may have helped to know more about what led one of the characters, a conscientious objector, to eventually join the military. Also, viewers would probably like to know what it was like for the black medic to get drafted. His lines regarding segregation and sitting on the back of the bus give us a unique window into another culture. He has come upon foreign land with the hope that civil rights are not only valued back home in the U.S., but also in an Asiatic battlefront threatened by the encroachment of communism.

The first movie ever made about the Korean War, filmed only a few months into its start, this film is very much influenced by director Fuller's own WWII experience. Gene Evans stars as a cigar-chomping, hard-bitten last survivor of his regiment. He joins up with a small Korean boy, whom he nicknames Short Round (obviously Spielberg and Lucas took the name for Indiana Jones' little Asian sidekick in Temple of Doom), and they eventually find a bunch of other survivors. The group holes themselves up in a Buddhist temple and create an observation post. Soon, they are surrounded by the enemy. This was obviously cheaply done, but it's extremely well done for the price. The climactic battle scene does become a little silly, though. Evans in general is good, but his prickliness and know-it-all-ness started to get on my nerves after a while. Still, very good.

"Where's your C.O. (Commanding Officer)?" "Fertilizing a rice paddy with the rest of the patrol.""...half his head is gone." This is the sort of gritty and realistic dialog that abounds in this ground-breaking Korean War film. Ground-breaking not just because of it's newer and more realistic language (complete with lots of racial epithets that would cause the politically correct types out there to have strokes) but because this picture managed to be the first Korean War film--being made while the war was still in its early days. And, to get this film out quickly, it was filmed in only 10 days--a shooting schedule typical of Sam Fuller's early films. It was also ground-breaking because the film tackled such topics as the treatment of Black-Americans and Japanese-American internment--touchy subjects that were virtually absent in films until years later. This film definitely marked a radical departure from WWII war films. Even excellent and realistic war films as BATTLE CRY and BATTLEGROUND didn't come close to the style in this film. Much of this realism is due to Fuller's own service in the front lines in the infantry in the previous war and the film seems like an ode to these brave men.The only strikes against the film are an over reliance on stock footage towards the end--with some of it appearing to be WWII footage! Plus, while I enjoyed the scenes, apparently the folks at home weren't particularly pleased with scenes showing a prisoner being killed as well as a medic throwing off his red crosses and manning a machine gun! Realistic, perhaps, but not quite the same heroic vision of soldiers from previous films.Still, overall this is a tense and exciting war film--perhaps the best of those made about the Korean War. Oh, and by the way, I checked. The tune for "Auld Lang Syne" really was the national anthem for Korea at one time. Also, read up on what IMDb says about the production--especially the number of extras and where the film was made. That Sam Fuller was a genius at getting the most out of minuscule budgets.PS--Gene Evans, the tough sergeant from this film really had been a sergeant in the army.