London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Screening: The Marines Who Never Returned CANCELLED

This screening is now cancelled as the KCC has closed, in common with many cultural venues, as a result of the health situation.

The KCC’s first season of in-house screenings this year commemorates the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War.

The Marines Who Never Returned

Director: Lee Man-hee (1963, 110 mins)
Cast: Jang Dong-hee, Choi Moo-ryong, Koo Bong-seo, Lee Dae-yub, Jeon Gye-hyeon
Thursday 19 March 2020, 7pm @KCCUK | Register via EventBrite

The Marines Who Never Returned

In the first of our series of screenings exploring the Korean War from multiple perspectives, we present Lee Man-Hee’s epic story of loss

Landing craft carry a group of Korean marines into hostile territory. They spring into action, taking on North Korean soldiers defending a battered factory zone. The marines rescue a little girl whose pregnant mother has been gunned down by the ‘commies’ before their eyes; but soon they come across the scene of a worse atrocity, the tortured bodies of innocent civilians murdered by the enemy soldiers. One marine finds the corpse of his own sister.

In these opening sequences, a careful attention to visual style, careful cutting, camera movement are all marks of Lee Man-hee’s film-making. These features of film form may make the clear anti-communist content, typical of the genre of South Korean war films, less strident. We get to know the characters and foibles of the men better as they head north, heroically invading the country which had wickedly invaded them.