Synopsis
John Ford's documentary about the early battles of the Korean War, shot in color.
This Is Korea!
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Alternative Titles
Questa è la Corea!, Esto es Corea, 여기는 한국!
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Theatrical
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USA
Releases by Country
USA
10 Aug 1951
- Theatrical
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"They know what's ahead.... a hard job.... a dirty job." - Narrator,
- Ford: boxd.it/dtooC
John Ford was pretty decent at making propaganda films. But question... what director would do the best job of making a propaganda film?
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John Ford’s propaganda film primarily is a colorful study of munitions porn.
Artillery ejaculating, napalm orgasming.
The film is literally beginning-to-end a series of explosions.
This makes the editing like 1920s soviet montage style at times, particularly when it cuts in a glamorous upshot of a manly men using his masculinity to press buttons to unleash (on the next edit) erect explosions of machismo all across the screen. -
John Ford on duty covering the war in Korea for the government. This time the lesser evil is less clear than a few years ago, and therefore Ford focus more on the civilians, children and how rough life is there in the conflict, than an actual enemy. It's a dark war documentary that even from a propaganda perspective is difficult to spin.
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“This is Korea, a peaceful land once. Lakes, villages, and mountains where the rice grew. Men and women worked and people lived for living. Until the ruthless red hand of Communism reached out to snatch it.”
“You can light your cigarette in the gun barrel.”
Written on a bomb “From Sam, To Whom It May Concern”
Turns out war ain’t as simple as young men dying and old men talking. It was the prestige of the uniform and the romanticism of being a tool of history that got things moving. The action is the juice, that's what life is all about baby! Indoctrination that WORKS.
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This is a John Ford documentary that follows a Marine unit in the Korean War as they advance through barren countryside. Ford made a number of documentaries in WWII as well. Ford believed part of showing your manhood was putting yourself in dangerous situations and war fulfilled that. His films were all about male heroism in the face of danger.
This is a hard documentary to get your hands around. You are not given much information - where in Korea is it, when is it, what is the objective and what are the circumstances. None of that is explained. So we basically get 50 minutes of alternating between rest back behind the lines and bombing the hell out of something…
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“This is Korea. A peaceful land once. The lakes, and villages, and mountains where the rice grew. Men and women worked, and people lived for living. Until the ruthless red hand of communism reached out to snatch it.”
This definitely felt the most propaganda-heavy of any of Ford’s military documentaries. In the sense that it’s less informational, and more about pulling at the heartstrings of the American people and demonizing the enemy. A lot of direct pleas to the audience.
“Aren't you glad you give that pint of blood last week... or did you? But you will now… won't you?”
It’s perhaps overly long, but the footage is undeniably immersive.
Kind of obsessed with the orphaned Korean child “Little Babe Ruth DiMaggio”. I wonder if that was his real name. 🤔
“Fry ‘em out! Burn ‘em out! Cook ‘em!”
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Wrote a bit about this in relation to The Battle at Lake Changjin for subscribers only at The Chinese Cinema.
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Weekly Film Critique: August 13, 1951
Last week, on August 10, the latest offering from the silver screen's revered maestro, John Ford, depicting the Korean War, made its debut in theaters. But does it measure up to the director's previous masterpieces?
With "This is Korea," Ford embarks on a new trajectory in his illustrious career. Renowned primarily for his gripping Westerns like "Ringo" or "Rio Grande," Ford now delivers a faithful documentary of the Korean War.
Shot on location in Korea, amidst the unfolding events, this 51-minute feature portrays the brutality and relentlessness of the conflict. But there's more! Ford also sheds light on the plight of the helpless Korean populace and the soldiers' suffering amidst the war's turmoil.
Unflinchingly,…
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Nice documentary about Ford tries to explain why we entered the Korean War and also shows what torments the people in South Korea were going through when we entered.
Ford was no stranger to this type of documentary as he made quite a few of them a decade earlier with his WWII films. I wouldn't say this was better than any of them but at the same time there's some very interesting stuff here. From what I've read this contains most, if not all, of the color footage from the Korean War and that alone makes this film quite important. There's really no story being told as we just keep seeing soldiers, fighting, bombs exploded and countless gunfire. I'm not…
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Standard US propaganda from Ford, yes some of the war footage is good but there's a very disturbing rah-rah attitude towards the US troops considering 36,000 of them died in three years and their constant use of napalm is enough to make your skin crawl... a small nothing compared to it's victims. A tough war to judge considering what happened to North Korea but the conflict seems forgotten compared to Vietnam yet had the greater cost in a far smaller amount of time for all involved. Even if this is a contemporary piece it's an unsettling watch, the barbarity of mankind works on both sides of every conflict and I hate it. Fuck the bravery of the troops, the violence devastates me, glorifying it just sickens me!
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Fantastic documentary about the early years of the Korean War. Ford arrived just after the Chinese had pushed back the UN forces, and so the film takes on a rather grim tone. In that sense, it creates a great companion piece to Ford's earlier Battle of Midway. In the former film, the enemy is clear, the purpose well-defined. In Korea though, the enemy is never seen in action, and the purpose is aimless. The world has changed, but still the soldiers press on, as they say in the film.
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Just a whole lot of shooting and explosions, but Ford somehow still makes his presence felt here. It's actually kinda amazing that he manages to do that even in war documentaries and quite consistently too.