My Way

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

This movie begins in present day Korea in 1928. Young Kim Jun-shik, his father and sister Eun-su are working on the farm of the Hasegawa family in Japanese occupied Korea. Both Jun-shik and young Hasegawa Tatsuo are interested in running; as they get older and by the time they are teenagers, they become fierce competitors. Tatsuo's grandfather is killed in a bomb attack by a Korean freedom fighter and subsequently a Korean runner, when a Korean wins a marathon race against Japanese competitors, this continues to inflame Korean-Japanese tensions. Jun-shik wins a race, though Tatsuo is awarded the medal when Jun-shik is disqualified for suposedly cheating; a riot by Korean people ensues. In order to punish them the The Japanese military drafts them into the Japanese Military, including Jun-shik and his friends.
In July 1939, they are taking part in a battle, on the Mongolian border, where a Chinese sniper, avenging the death of her family at the hands of the Japanese, is captured and tortured by the Japanese Army. Tatsuo is now a colonel, taking over command in the area and battles, forcing the existing commander, Takakura. After refusing to join a suicide squad, Jun-shik is imprisoned with Shirai, the sniper girl that they had captured and tortured, but escapes with her, Jong-dae and two other friends. Jun-shik, seeing tanks coming to attack, attempts to return to base to warn the Japanese forces.. During his return, he is attacked by a Soviet war plane and is saved by Shirai, who gets shot to death by a plane the she shot down. Jun-shik returns to the base and is able to warn the Japanese forces that Soviet tanks are coming to attack, but Colonel Tatsuo refuses to order a retreat.
In February 1940, Jun-shik and Tatsuo end up in Kungursk, a Prisoner of War camp, this is where Koreans and Japanese were incarcerated together. Under the name of Anton, Jong-dae becomes a work-unit leader and helps his Korean friends, while Tatsuo is humiliated and is almost killed by Jun-shik in a fight. When news comes that Germany has declared war on the Soviet Union, Jun-shik and Tatsuo are among those forcibly drafted into the Soviet Army. They both fight in a bloody battle against the German army at Hedosk in December 1941. Both are alive at the end of the battle and Jun-shik convinces Tatsuo to change their uniforms to German military uniforms taken from dead bodies and travel over the mountains. As they travel together, Tatsuo has been injured. They come upon a town where Jun-shik goes to find medicine to give to Tatsuo. During the time that Jun-shik leaves, the German soldiers find Tatsuo, when unable to understand him, they capture him.
Three years later, Tatsuo is part of the German Army. He finds himself on the beaches of Normandy, just prior to D-Day. As the army fortifies the beaches, Tatsuo sees a man running on the beach. He catches up to him and see that it is Jun-Shik. It is apparent that they have no seen each other since right after the battle in Hedosk. They decide to run away from Normandy to go back to Korea. When leaving, an airborne assault begins, they still try to leave. As they run, Jun-shik is wounded by a piece of bomb that hit him in the chest. A dying Jun-shik tells Tatsuo that "He is now Jun-shik", thinking this was the only way to save him and the Americans would not do anything to him. in the last scene, Tatsuo is running and winning the 1948 Olympic games and then a flashback appears of their first encounter.

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