Welcome to Dongmakgol (Korean: 웰컴 투 동막골; RR: Welkeom tu dongmakgol), also known as Battle Ground 625 (UK),[2] is a 2005 South Korean wartime comedy film. Based on the same-titled long-running stage play by filmmaker/playwright Jang Jin,[3][4] Park Kwang-hyun's debut film was a commercial and critical success.[5]
The first of these occurs just a few minutes into the film as Smith's plane plummets towards the ground. A scene full of noise and fury, it suddenly becomes tranquil (majorly slowing in speed in the process) as a single butterfly briefly appears outside the window of the crashing plane. No sooner has the butterfly gone than we are returned to the scene as it was before and the plane crashes to the ground at exhilarating speed. Though we are unaware of it at the time, we are subtlety being shown the difference between the loud, violent, outside world and the beauty and tranquility of Dongmakgol, and this (combined with another scene of the North Korean soldiers similarly encountering butterflies, just before they meet Yeo Il for the first time) means that, by the time she arrives and tells her first wacky tale, we have already accepted the genre change and feel relatively familiar with the village - even before we have seen it.
From that point on, the intelligent writing brings believable openness and friendliness from all of the village inhabitants, not only cementing viewer empathy firmly in place but also ensuring that we truly feel at home in the village, and thus subsequent references to the war and the outside world really feel like a threat to us, as much as a threat to the characters.
In a nutshell, the success of a relatively simple story, such as this, is utterly dependent on the extent to which viewers care about the characters' plights, and the efforts taken to make us feel welcome in Dongmakgol almost guarantee that we really do care what befalls them.
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Shin Ha-Kyun, Kang Hye-Jung, and Jung Jae-Young in Welcome to Dongmakgol. Korean: 웰컴 투 동막골 Year: 2005 Director: Park Kwang-Hyeon Cast: Jung Jae-Young, Shin Ha-Kyun, Kang Hye-Jung, Im Ha-Ryong, Ryoo Deok-Hwan, Seo Jae-Gyung, Steve Taschler The Skinny: This box office and critical success about soldiers escaping the horrors of war in an idyllic mountain village is a welcome breath of fresh air sure to elicit not only a genuine emotional response, but ample belly laughs as well, perhaps even from the most jaded filmgoer. It recalls the best of Kurosawa, Miyazaki, and even Stephen Chow, but still provides enough of its own identity to succeed as a film in its own right. A definite crowdpleaser. Review byCalvinMcMillin: Korean cinema gets a much-needed shot in the arm with Welcome to Dongmakgol, an exhilarating, transcendent anti-war film that marks the impressive directorial debut of filmmaker Park Kwang Hyeon. Set amidst the backdrop of the Korean War, this box office and critical smash explores the converging paths of a group of bitter enemies, who find more than they bargained for in the peaceful mountain village of Dongmakgol.