On the plus side, White Badge shows a side of the Vietnam War that few Americans even know existed——the Korean aspect. Unfortunately, the film doesn't give much insight into why the Koreans got involved. Primarily it deals with a simplistic picture of two veterans who are irrevocably affected by the war and preaches the same message we've seen in countless other takes of the Vietnam War, most recently in We Were Soldiers——it's an ancient conflict between the Vietnamese that countries like France, the United States, and Korea should have stayed away from.

Often this film is described as the Korean version of Platoon, and two notable scenes in a village and along a farmer's path are reminiscent of Stone's work. But mixed in are amateurish insertions plagiarizing aspects of The Deerhunter and Apocalypse Now!, all designed to present another basic anti-war message.

Opening in 1979 during the student uprisings and turmoil in South Korea, Han (Sung-kee Ahn), is attempting to write a novel chronicling Korean involvement in Vietnam but finds himself stuck. He has flashbacks that he’d prefer to block out, but after an overlong and monotonous opening lacking sufficient light, the film jumps back ten years to the days when Han served as a sergeant. He cranks out an opening episode for a newsmagazine, and is immediately contacted by the only other survivor from the platoon, Pyon (Kyung Young Lee).

Lee's limited acting experience shows, and he’s lucky to find work again after his silly personification of a paranoid schizophrenic, permanently shell-shocked after Vietnam. However, Pyon provides the plot's impetus to go back and forth in time between the present day and Vietnam, the first direct reference occurs when Pyon sees a poster of Robert De Niro's scowling face on The Deerhunter poster, and soon after the same Russian roulette metaphor again comes into play with far less impact.

Pyon has suffered wartime horror, and cannot block it from his mind. The Koreans have a reputation for being fierce warriors, and the Korean troops have been lured to the war for mercenary reasons, getting bonus pay for killing Viet Cong—the proof being whole ear slices. This gives Pyon an opportunity (as if we didn't expect it) to do a Van Gogh hack job on himself, which turns out to be one of the film's highlights.

Certainly the battle scenes are real downers. The limited budget certainly determines how little carnage the film can show on screen, but the night battle scenes become comical with their cheesy cheapness. They are either shot in total darkness (where only white subtitles appear with machine gun shots on a black screen), or in the far distance are yellow and orange explosions with tiny silhouettes of soldiers, who occasionally jump up and flop to the ground. Only one night scene stages some close-ups and the ill-trained stunt men continue to leap straight up and drop without body contact.

Of course, one of the high points occurs after one of those blackened scenes. The next morning, the sunrise reveals that the Koreans had slaughtered a herd of water buffalo, and the villagers are up in arms wanting compensation. The sight of the “enemy” bloated bovines on their sides with guts hanging out provides one of the few humorous moments, along with the outraged locals shouting and gesturing at the Koreans. Even the children taunt the soldiers, asking for money or other treasures, which gives Han a chance to flash back to the Korean War in grainy black and white photography. The first time this occurs is so abrupt that it's difficult to fathom, but that's how the whole film generally operates—director Ji-yeong Jeong and editor Soon Duck Bark don't place a premium on smooth transitions. A few scenes nearly pounce like the dying soldiers in the big battle scenes.

The limited budget also comes into play with the cinematography. Varying qualities of film stock don't add to the continuity, but even more glaring (or actually “lack of glare”) is the inconsistent use of natural lighting or LACK of lighting throughout. Far too many scenes are unnecessarily dark, so it's no surprise that the best scenes occur in broad daylight.

To its credit White Badge gives a glimpse of the Korean military mentality, showing their attitude towards war—very much parallel to ideas you'll find in Red Badge of Courage as far as how boring the life can be and wanting to see some action, but being a bit fearful at the same time. On the other hand, the motivation for being there is purely mercenary as the men dream of setting up their own businesses after the war is over and returning to their sweethearts. The camera never really gets close enough to involve us in any of the characters, even though it only focuses on a handful and revolves around the two survivors.

It's a shame that the only cinematic Korean face to the Vietnam War thus far comes through such a clumsy effort. Clocking in at an overlong 122 minutes, this 1994 film easily could be tightened down to 90 minutes without losing much, since most of the film plays like a cheap retreads of previous Vietnam War films. In reality, to avoid any flashbacks of how I wasted 2 hours of my life watching this film, the essentials could be edited down to a ten-minute highlight film including few war background scenes and the Seoul riots, and leave out the overdone and lazy ending.