As Real As Battle Can Get

`We Were Soldiers`.

The movie, in such a direct and rough title, digs into the middle of a fierce battle, where life and death cross each other every moment. The battlefield is called Ia Drang (Valley of Death) in northern Vietnam in 1965, where the U.S. troops first encounter the Vietnamese troops. The movie follows Hollywood¡¯s trend, as it captures the realistic scenes of the battle in a form of documentary, in which both the movie-attraction and anti-war consciousness are contained simultaneously.

A Harvard graduate, Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, receives an order to lead 396 soldiers into the Vietnamese battlefield. Moore requests more time for training, but receives denial instead. He is finally sent into Ia Drang, and faces the North Vietnamese troops in the same place. As the battle becomes fiercer, inexperienced soldiers fall onto ground one after another in confusion. These soldiers are not even aware of the reason to fight or die; they only believe that `they are proud of patriotic death for the nation`.

As so, `We Were Soldiers` is kind of an extension of `Black Hawk Down`, which was released in the beginning of the year. Only the place has changed from Africa¡¯s downtown Somalia to a Vietnamese jungle, but the themes of participation in battle under ambitious military administration, death of soldiers, and heroic leadership are similar to the overall Hollywood war-movie flow. This movie fails to convey the message of war¡¯s insanity as other Vietnam War movies like `Apocalypse Now` and `Deer Hunter` did.

The movie captures the battle scenes for an hour and a half on a hand-held camera, while emotions of families are added like accessories. When Moore is reading out enemy¡¯s coordinates to the mortar corps, his wife is comforting a wife who receives a letter of her husband¡¯s death in a battlefield. Moore¡¯s 5 children are another means to maximize such family-emotion.

An advantage of `We Were Soldiers¡° is that it showed the climax of Hollywood¡¯s realistic war description that became active since `Saving Private Ryan`. Its scenes of a soldier, half of whose face is burnt on a bomb blast, and physical fights with bayonets are more chilling than any other movie.

However, `We Were Soldiers` only stay in a battle, and fails to expand into the war. There is the fear of soldiers before death, but there is no cause or fundamental fear of the entire war. As `Black Hawk Down` did not answer the reason for the U.S. `down` after even crashing a high-tech helicopter, `We Were Soldiers` also falls short of resolving the questions of `What about the Ia Drang battle?¡° or ¡°What means the death of the soldiers?¡°.

The original work is `We Were Soldiers Once¡¦ And Young`, written by reporter Joe Galloway, who served in the Ia Drang battle, and the real character Moore. The movie is directed by Randall Wallace, scenario-writer of `Pearl Harbor`.

Release Date: 3rd. Above 15.

Seung-Heon Lee ddr@donga.com