The Battle of Jangsari

If director Kwak Kyung-Taek and writers Brian Chung and Cory Gustke have a tendency to fall deep into predictability, the battle scenes make up for it...The trench warfare attack, which comes about 30 minutes in, is close-quarters brutal.

The production team pulls no punches when it comes to the terrifying nonsense of war

The battle scenes are quite well done. They are the prime reason to watch this film.

Formulaic to a fault, The Battle of Jangsari rolls out a procession of war movie clichés with regimented efficiency, but without a glimmer of individuality or invention.

Decent action sequences can't bring much meaning to this tepid, miscast melodrama.

While on the surface Jangsari is "just another war movie,'' it's important because it recognizes that adolescents can rise to the task when their families and futures are threatened.

Much of this non-combat story relies on melodrama, which means we never gain a sense of these characters as actual people.

Visceral and sentimental Korean War as fought by Koreans combat film, on an action and production par with a solid Hollywood B-movie.

Kwak is a talented veteran auteur. But he has a tendency to go one step too far in depicting the emotions and dramas of his films.